Best way to watch movies while dry camping

profdant139 wrote:
Once in a while, we will watch a DVD on a laptop, using the battery in the laptop.

That's a good idea.. I think many of us forget about that option.

Once in a while, we will watch a DVD on a laptop, using the battery in the laptop. Then, whenever the laptop needs charging, we just plug it into the inverter in our truck and charge it while we are driving around.

But honestly, it has been a few years since we did that -- we are usually so tired after a day of hiking, and then making dinner and cleaning up, that we don't have enough time to watch a movie -- we are usually asleep by 10 pm!

every evening before Quite time I start my honda 2000, I have a 20amp
auto batt charger (any auto parts store) hooked to house batts DW makes a pot of coffee and puts it in pump pot for morning and we watch a movie. buy the time we are finished with the movie the coffee is done and house Batts are charged. this has worked for us for years.

We always have a small generator with us - even when we went to Cades Cove a few years ago!

We take a Honda EX650 along at all times in the RV regardless of the destination ... just in case. We also carry a safety certified steel sealed gas can along, which can fill up the little generator about five times.

For watching movies in the evenings, we use our HD widescreen 17 inch laptop with it's 12 volt brick and built-in Blu-Ray DVD drive.

I would have a little generator with me. Prior to having an onan on board, we used to use our Honda 1000. Everything drains your batteries; the furnace, fridge, etc. Hope you have changed to LED lights as that is a huge savings. We have a portable DVD player if we are bored. I do a lot of reading and we play some board games, cards and not use the electronics. It can be fun but this time of year I would play it safe with a small generator.

We do ELKMONT alot doing the same thing... In our case however we have a pretty good battery bank and run just about everything we do at electric sites.

We then run the 2KW Generator the next morning which we are allowed to run our generator at ELKMONT and recharge our battery bank back up to the 90% charge state so we can do this all over again the next day/night run off the batteries.

We can do this for at least 12-14 days when we have to run our generator for over 12 hours to do a complete 100% battery bank charge otherwise we will do damage to the batteries. They will only do a 50% to 90% just so many times before they need to be charged up to their 100% charge state. Since the generator run time restrictions usually is not allowed to run this long of time continuous this is when we pack up and head for the house.

At both Cades Cove and ELKMONT the bath rooms all have 120VAC power. I have seen some campers leave a single battery and a battery charger plugged into the 120VAC receptacle in the bath house a few times. Campers can always figure out a way to keep going hehe... Have also seen a few extension cords running from the bath house to a tent setup too. They don't usually last long however as it probably is too easy for the maintenance folks to just follow the extension cord to the tent site haha...

Got to take care of your batteries...

Roy Ken

We use twin group 27 deep cycles and can run out 19 inch flat screen and DVD player for one movie per night for only 3-4 nights until voltage drop does not allow 400 watt inverter to power up. We then charge the batteries and good for another cycle. We found the furnace motor biggest amperage draw. Only fridge draw is propane ignition. The HONDA EU 1000 was money well spent for sure.

Put the movies on a PMD and plug it into the entertainment center of your TV and sit in the back seat. I haven't watched a movie in years.

The 12 volt port will win just because of the inverter losses. Often the inverter isn't big enough to run very much without cooling itself with it's fan, and now you have another parasitic load just to watch TV.

I really do hope you have a generator along? Your fridge will rob your batteries.. and to go for 8 days on only 2 batteries can seriously drain you down.