Newby Dry Camping Questions

garym114 wrote:
Two 6v GC2 batteries would be best, common golf cart size.

True, IF you have the space for them, I didn't, so I replaced my two group 27's with 2 12v Trojan group 31's, even then I had to modify my battery box.

Our two 27 batteries with Honda gen running an hour and a half a day kept us powered for six days. We had to fill water but easy with five gallon jug. We do have led light.

My solar puts out 7 amps in leafy shade at solar noon. The latest panels are a whole bunch more efficient.

How about tucking a 300 watt inverter near to the battery bank and running some light cord to it? The Victron PSW is sometimes under 100 bucks on Amazon. it weighs in at 7 lb (nice big transformer so you won't be dealing with the vagaries of a switch power supply.

philh wrote:
If you want to run any 120V devices while dry camping and not using the generator, you'll need an inverter. Pure sine wave versions. I wish I had gone with 300 watt, however, my wiring was not up to the load that 300 watts would have put on it. Since I bought it, I've found at least two items I would love to run on the inverter and both are in the 180-200 watt range :(

The bigger the battery bank the better. Also an inverter for phone battery, TV & other small AC demand needs.

Solar is expensive & only works well under the sun. Not much use to you if you spend most of you camping under the trees.

I get one day if I need the furnace all night set on about 50 degrees. Thats as far as I want to draw them group 31's down. The calcs really don't work. A honda gen does.

garym114 wrote:
Two 6v GC2 batteries would be best, common golf cart size.

This is the best option for what you want to do. Sam Club,Costco and Batteries Plus all sell 6 v Golf Cart batteries for less than $100 each, watch for sales. For lights, water pump and 12v controls for refer you will last a week on 2 6v GC batteries wired in series. You will run out of water before electric power especially if you are not familiar with dry camping. I have to look for ways to exercise my genset and almost never use it just to recharge batteries and I dry camp 95% of the time. Once you have dry camped a number of times and you find you need to recharge batteries I would look for a good 40 amp potable battery charger, that can equalize and desulfate your batteries also. I am not sure what kind of battery charger/converter you have now? How many amps will it put out to charge you batteries? Even if it is just a low amp constant charger you can still keep it to float charge you batteries.

golf cart batteries 50% for best practise and longest life.

If planning on inverter then get an inverter/charger and leave the wfco in place as a back up

My understanding of GC2 batteries, they can take a 80% discharge cycle.

You must replace the WFCO battery charger. I went to bestconvertor.com and got the 4655 WildKat http://www.bestconverter.com/PD-4655L-MBA-WildKat-55-Amp-Main-Board-Assembly-for-WFCO-8955-or-Parallax-7155-Includes-4600-Remote-_p_677.html#.XSPvu_57nIV

If you want to run any 120V devices while dry camping and not using the generator, you'll need an inverter. Pure sine wave versions. I wish I had gone with 300 watt, however, my wiring was not up to the load that 300 watts would have put on it. Since I bought it, I've found at least two items I would love to run on the inverter and both are in the 180-200 watt range :(

Also CG2 batteries and Group 27s should only be discharged to 50% correct? Or can u discharge CG2 more to get more amp hours out of single charge? Someone above mentioned it briefly