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Hobo2's avatar
Hobo2
Explorer
Feb 19, 2017

How many amps

Going to be dry camping at me Mexico balloon fest first week October. From 9pm to 7am batteries only. Have residential refrigerator and maxxair fan in fifth wheel. How many amps total in batteries would get me by? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
  • So 9PM to 7AM is quiet hours? Are you running a generator the rest of the day?
    Time to review your charging system to make sure you are close to 100% each day.

    Consider adding some solar if parked in the sun.
  • " dry camping .... residential refrigerator" equate only with many dollars spent.
  • I think that max air uses 3 amps on high less than 1 amp on low
    30 amps hours would be halve of one small car battery
    Not RV house batteries

    kohldad wrote:
    The residential fridge is going to be the biggest problem. If you don't open up the doors and have some ice jugs you can put in there, it would help the load. An alternative would be a few pounds of dry ice wrapped in a towel.

    Doing a quick internet search, it seams for 11 hours you will need 200A/hrs which includes the inverter draw, so about 182 A/hr for the 10 hours you specify. This will required 4 batteries to provide the power.

    The maxair set on it's lowest setting will draw about 3A/hr for the 10 hours means 30A/hrs. That is a little over 1/2 of one battery. The other standard parasitic draws will require the rest of the battery. This also means very little light usage.

    Therefor, you may squeeze by with 5 batteries unless you help the fridge with ice jugs (which you can refreeze each day while on the generator). The ice jugs would probably give you enough to spare for the lights.

    Edit: Here is the article for reference on someone who put a residential fridge in their RV: Article
  • It's three spare 12v in "PARALLEL"

    Series is when you use 6v pairs positive connected to negative to make 12v

    We have a residential fridge, with fridge, tv pc lights, and some electric blanket use
    We avg about 135 amp hrs over night
    Any thing from 300 ampHrs up fully charged , should be no problem overnight and keep you above the 50% line

    We have 675 ampHrs use 20~25% overnight
    But we full time and I don't want to drag them down to the 50%
    If it can be avoided
  • Thank you very much so I will bring 3 spare batteries in series. You've been very helpful. That's the only drawback to my new DRV. A gas refrigerator would have made dry camping so much easier.
  • The residential fridge is going to be the biggest problem. If you don't open up the doors and have some ice jugs you can put in there, it would help the load. An alternative would be a few pounds of dry ice wrapped in a towel.

    Doing a quick internet search, it seams for 11 hours you will need 200A/hrs which includes the inverter draw, so about 182 A/hr for the 10 hours you specify. This will required 4 batteries to provide the power.

    The maxair set on it's lowest setting will draw about 3A/hr for the 10 hours means 30A/hrs. That is a little over 1/2 of one battery. The other standard parasitic draws will require the rest of the battery. This also means very little light usage.

    Therefor, you may squeeze by with 5 batteries unless you help the fridge with ice jugs (which you can refreeze each day while on the generator). The ice jugs would probably give you enough to spare for the lights.

    Edit: Here is the article for reference on someone who put a residential fridge in their RV: Article
  • I would suggest you try it in your driveway and see how your batteries hold up.

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