Adding eletrical to enclosed trailer
First of all forgive me, I know this topic has been discussed and there are a million different tutorials but I guess I need it simplified for me as to if my idea will work. My wife and I are wanti...
Forum Discussion
Wrong, this wont work.
"So my plan is to add a deep cycle 12v battery (one to start with)and a 110V power inverter. So the obvious question is keeping the battery charged. From some things I've read I can run a smart/trickle charger from the battery and basically BACK to the battery thereby continuously keeping it charged. It will be charged off the vehicle when running, but we need a week of sustainable power at best."
You just described a perpetual motion machine. It wont work. You can connect a motor to a generator and connect the generator back to the motor and spin the motor but the generator will NOT power the motor.
There are energy losses all through the system and you could measure it in very technical ways but it wont work.
Rv's have 2 electrical systems. One system is 12 volts and it powers the lights, water pump, refrigerator control circuits, water heater control circuits, exhaust fans, etc. The other system is 120 volts ac and it powers the air conditioner, microwave, the heat element for the refrigerator, the heat element for the water heater. It also powers a key component in the system.
These 2 systems are tied together with a very important component. The CONverter. It charges the battery and can power 12 devices without the battery present. A CONverter and a battery charger can both charge a 12 volt battery but a converter can convert 120 v ac to 12 v dc and not need the battery in the system to do it. A battery charger usually wont do this. I wouldn't recommend not having a battery when using a converter but it will work.
You mentioned not needing a lot of 120 volt ac.
To charge the battery you will need to do one of these things or a combination of these things.
1. Use "shore" power 120 ac to run a battery charger or CONverter.
2. Use a generator to power a battery charger or CONverter
3. Solar
I'm not using solar yet so others will help you with that. 30 watts will probably let you keep a battery from going dead during storage, not much more.
Run any 12 volt devices that you can with 12 volts. DONT INvert. Running an INverter off a battery and plugging a phone charger or laptop charger into the inverter is a waste of energy. Get a 12 volt phone charger or laptop charger. The inverter uses energy just being turned on and not even powering anything.
Instead of inverting to run the curling iron or other heavy 120 draw items, maybe you could run a generator?
Good inverters are expensive, especially when you get up in size. I run a 600 watt pure sine INverter to power my televisions and some 120 volt small stuff. When I want 120 v high amperage for hair dryer or microwave I use a remote start Honda generator.
There are a ton of details to doing this yet it's actually very easy. You need to know how long you want to be able to stay off grid. You need to build a basic energy plan that let's you begin to size the components. You need to start with the amount of energy you will use and size the battery or batteries to that.
The smallest and lightest battery you would use is a group 24. Then in capacity you go to gp 27, 29, and I believe 31. These are called marine or dual. Marine/deep etc. They work pretty good but when getting into much INverter use or staying out for longer time frames or running something like a 12 volt/propane rv furnace, you would do much better buy going to two true deep cycle 6 volt batteries in series. If you have no batteries now, I wouldn't buy marine/deep. Get real deep cycles. They vary from inexpensive at places like Sams club ($89.00 for one 6 volt) to much more for good batteries like Trojan etc. There are also other options like AGM and be aware of the various charging voltages required by them.
You have a ton of research to do before you buy components but you have come to a great place with a lot of knowledgeable people.
Give everyone some ideas of what you picture your camping style to be. Make a list of all the things you want to power and error on the high side. You may not watch tv much but you may if it's rainy and cold. If your system is a little to big, you wasted a little money, if it's too small it's going to stink. There are a bunch of variables involved here and many ways to do this. Everyone finds what works for them. If you will be hitting a campground every few days to charge up it's completely different than a person who wants to stay off grid all the time. You become your own energy company.
Here is just one scenario
1. Two 6 volt GC2 batteries in series which gives you a LARGE 12 volt battery. Either a converter like Progressive Dynamics ($160.00) or a good battery charger. When I say good I mean $160.00 to $400.00 Maybe an Generac or champion generator ($400.00 ish) that could fire up just for hair dryers and some battery charging. If you want the best get a Yammie or Honda.
To me, if you want to invert much, I would go with 4 gc2.
When you start talking battery charging it opens a whole different door. Some converters charge slowly and that's not a problem if your rig is sitting at home waiting to go out in a couple weeks. It's a real pain if you are burning fuel to run a genny hour after hour.
To me just because a campground let's you run a gen from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm doesn't mean I should. I want as short of run time as possible.
"So my plan is to add a deep cycle 12v battery (one to start with)and a 110V power inverter. So the obvious question is keeping the battery charged. From some things I've read I can run a smart/trickle charger from the battery and basically BACK to the battery thereby continuously keeping it charged. It will be charged off the vehicle when running, but we need a week of sustainable power at best."
You just described a perpetual motion machine. It wont work. You can connect a motor to a generator and connect the generator back to the motor and spin the motor but the generator will NOT power the motor.
There are energy losses all through the system and you could measure it in very technical ways but it wont work.
Rv's have 2 electrical systems. One system is 12 volts and it powers the lights, water pump, refrigerator control circuits, water heater control circuits, exhaust fans, etc. The other system is 120 volts ac and it powers the air conditioner, microwave, the heat element for the refrigerator, the heat element for the water heater. It also powers a key component in the system.
These 2 systems are tied together with a very important component. The CONverter. It charges the battery and can power 12 devices without the battery present. A CONverter and a battery charger can both charge a 12 volt battery but a converter can convert 120 v ac to 12 v dc and not need the battery in the system to do it. A battery charger usually wont do this. I wouldn't recommend not having a battery when using a converter but it will work.
You mentioned not needing a lot of 120 volt ac.
To charge the battery you will need to do one of these things or a combination of these things.
1. Use "shore" power 120 ac to run a battery charger or CONverter.
2. Use a generator to power a battery charger or CONverter
3. Solar
I'm not using solar yet so others will help you with that. 30 watts will probably let you keep a battery from going dead during storage, not much more.
Run any 12 volt devices that you can with 12 volts. DONT INvert. Running an INverter off a battery and plugging a phone charger or laptop charger into the inverter is a waste of energy. Get a 12 volt phone charger or laptop charger. The inverter uses energy just being turned on and not even powering anything.
Instead of inverting to run the curling iron or other heavy 120 draw items, maybe you could run a generator?
Good inverters are expensive, especially when you get up in size. I run a 600 watt pure sine INverter to power my televisions and some 120 volt small stuff. When I want 120 v high amperage for hair dryer or microwave I use a remote start Honda generator.
There are a ton of details to doing this yet it's actually very easy. You need to know how long you want to be able to stay off grid. You need to build a basic energy plan that let's you begin to size the components. You need to start with the amount of energy you will use and size the battery or batteries to that.
The smallest and lightest battery you would use is a group 24. Then in capacity you go to gp 27, 29, and I believe 31. These are called marine or dual. Marine/deep etc. They work pretty good but when getting into much INverter use or staying out for longer time frames or running something like a 12 volt/propane rv furnace, you would do much better buy going to two true deep cycle 6 volt batteries in series. If you have no batteries now, I wouldn't buy marine/deep. Get real deep cycles. They vary from inexpensive at places like Sams club ($89.00 for one 6 volt) to much more for good batteries like Trojan etc. There are also other options like AGM and be aware of the various charging voltages required by them.
You have a ton of research to do before you buy components but you have come to a great place with a lot of knowledgeable people.
Give everyone some ideas of what you picture your camping style to be. Make a list of all the things you want to power and error on the high side. You may not watch tv much but you may if it's rainy and cold. If your system is a little to big, you wasted a little money, if it's too small it's going to stink. There are a bunch of variables involved here and many ways to do this. Everyone finds what works for them. If you will be hitting a campground every few days to charge up it's completely different than a person who wants to stay off grid all the time. You become your own energy company.
Here is just one scenario
1. Two 6 volt GC2 batteries in series which gives you a LARGE 12 volt battery. Either a converter like Progressive Dynamics ($160.00) or a good battery charger. When I say good I mean $160.00 to $400.00 Maybe an Generac or champion generator ($400.00 ish) that could fire up just for hair dryers and some battery charging. If you want the best get a Yammie or Honda.
To me, if you want to invert much, I would go with 4 gc2.
When you start talking battery charging it opens a whole different door. Some converters charge slowly and that's not a problem if your rig is sitting at home waiting to go out in a couple weeks. It's a real pain if you are burning fuel to run a genny hour after hour.
To me just because a campground let's you run a gen from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm doesn't mean I should. I want as short of run time as possible.
