hey,first heres to a happy and safe camping experience to all in 2015....recently upgraded from a popup to the 261ss. i tend to dry camp more often than not. it seems that i need to get at least 4 days to a triip in my mind to make it relaxing .. seems even with 4k onan gen. i still cant seem to get my batteries to lasst evan 3 days...so to make a short story longer is solar the answer to my needs? can i run generator and plug in a battery charger to speed u p my recharge on the camper..or keep it plugged to my truck and running that with generator?.. the only thing i know about ac /dc is they are excellent....ha!ha! Anyway in short what is the best no hassle way to make the battery/batteries... last. i think we put in a 26 or 28 series battery..its longer.. thanks
dry camping and batteries
- Thread starter jpatkat
- Start date
Oregon_Camper
Well-known member
Biggest battery drain will be the heater. Are you running the heater at night (while you sleep)? If so...stop. You can add an extra blanket and do the same thing.
How many of you are in the trailer? Are you good at keep the lights off when you leave?
Solar will help, by applying amp's all day long. You will still need a good battery configuration to make a difference. If you're only dry camping a few times a year and want to get 4-5 days...then I'd recommend two (2) 6volt Trojan batteries. Much better than the 12v that come with the trailer.
That won't help...you can only charge at the rate your converter supplies amp's to your battery. Think of it like a huge funnel....you can try to stuff a lot of power at the battery...but in the end only so much will come out the other end (to the batteries)
Jim.Allison
Well-known member
First you must invest in good batts, Trojan AGM is one among a few good batts out there. When you burn LP to run a generator to power a charger to charge your batteries you can easily afford to install solar. Plus if you do it in 2016 you can still get a 30% tax credit for the installation, including the batts.
You problem with charging your batts is that you are not charging to the point where 90% of your charge is. You can't afford to. What you are doing is bulk charging. If your charger is like everyone elses, it charges on a charging curve. To complete the curve it takes 6+ hours since it pushes the last part of the charge at about 2 amps. So it starts off charging at 30 amps (bulk) and tapers down to 2 amps (float). My system batts are fully charged at 12.7V, but I have worked them and charged them to the point that I consider them 100% charged at 13.4 volts.
A dead batt is reads about 10.5 volts, don't ever run one down that low because damage will occur. Dont go less than 50% charge and in the trojans that is about 11.7 V. Since the difference between 11.7 V and 13.4, is 1.7v, you can see that ALL your usable amp hours are stored in 1.7v. That is not much and it is easier to use it than to put it back.
Solar power is very helpful in that, generally speaking it is providing an excess of power, so you are not always tapping your batts, It only uses batt charge if the solar can't provide enough for what you are using. So this scenario extends your batteries charge. With Solar you will ALWAYS be 100% charged when the sun goes down unless you have been using a lot of energy.
As far as batteries are concerned, its amp hours/lb/$, If you want batteries that will last 8 years or better, get solar, and get industrial grade batteries.
I recommend 2 12v in parallel, at about 150 amp hours each. paralleling them will give you 300 amp hours. The best 6v are 225 amp hours each, but when put in series to gain 12v you will only have 225 amp hours.
When you have 12v in parallel, you can take on out of service and still have 12v. You cannot do that with 6v since you have to remove 2 at a time.
You can check out my solar components, the part numbers are in my signature. Mine is a very good system with a lot of capacity, I have no shortage of AC or DC when boondocking. But a smaller system will function just as well as mine, but a survey of the amount of electricity you want to use is necessary.
My generator is to run the air conditioners, or emergency power. I never run it when in the mountains.
Hope this helps.
You problem with charging your batts is that you are not charging to the point where 90% of your charge is. You can't afford to. What you are doing is bulk charging. If your charger is like everyone elses, it charges on a charging curve. To complete the curve it takes 6+ hours since it pushes the last part of the charge at about 2 amps. So it starts off charging at 30 amps (bulk) and tapers down to 2 amps (float). My system batts are fully charged at 12.7V, but I have worked them and charged them to the point that I consider them 100% charged at 13.4 volts.
A dead batt is reads about 10.5 volts, don't ever run one down that low because damage will occur. Dont go less than 50% charge and in the trojans that is about 11.7 V. Since the difference between 11.7 V and 13.4, is 1.7v, you can see that ALL your usable amp hours are stored in 1.7v. That is not much and it is easier to use it than to put it back.
Solar power is very helpful in that, generally speaking it is providing an excess of power, so you are not always tapping your batts, It only uses batt charge if the solar can't provide enough for what you are using. So this scenario extends your batteries charge. With Solar you will ALWAYS be 100% charged when the sun goes down unless you have been using a lot of energy.
As far as batteries are concerned, its amp hours/lb/$, If you want batteries that will last 8 years or better, get solar, and get industrial grade batteries.
I recommend 2 12v in parallel, at about 150 amp hours each. paralleling them will give you 300 amp hours. The best 6v are 225 amp hours each, but when put in series to gain 12v you will only have 225 amp hours.
When you have 12v in parallel, you can take on out of service and still have 12v. You cannot do that with 6v since you have to remove 2 at a time.
You can check out my solar components, the part numbers are in my signature. Mine is a very good system with a lot of capacity, I have no shortage of AC or DC when boondocking. But a smaller system will function just as well as mine, but a survey of the amount of electricity you want to use is necessary.
My generator is to run the air conditioners, or emergency power. I never run it when in the mountains.
Hope this helps.
thanks for the fast reply's,Jim, do you have a single stage or multi stage converter? i believe my converter is only single stage being that i have only read 13.6v with my multimeter with camper plugged into shore power, running on battery, etc. the only time the battery will charge at a reasonable rate is when it is plugged into my running truck, truck pumps out 14.7v which would be the reason for the faster charge. i feel like i should be looking at a good multi stage converter first then battery's, and then start looking into solar. current funds arnt going to allow for all the upgrades at once. i can live with the smaller battery for now as long as i can have a reasonable recharge rate off of the generator <3hrs. i dont want to spend the money on batterys only to destroy them by discharging them to far accidentally. is this feasible or will the only answer be to do solar and batterys or converter and battery.
branson4020
Icantre Member
Your rig already has a perfectly good 3-stage converter/charger. Don't even think about replacing it. If you don't see a voltage higher than 13.6 it's because the converter thinks your batteries can only safely accept that level of charge. Trying to charge a battery thats already at 85-90% with something like 14+ volts will ultimately boil and damage the battery.
