Equip for Your Scenario
Up to lately with a 5er, camping in provincial parks in the winter off-grid, under the trees with no solar possible, and a two-hour time limit on generators 9-11am and 6-8pm (that one in the dark) usi...
Forum Discussion
If the scenario is five days off grid, no solar, no driving around, and one hour of idling a day--- I get about 25 amps now and let's say a new alternator gets me 50 amps--that's 25 more so 125AH.
Two more batteries (I have room for two more) at 225AH would provide 125AH no problem and would be recharged once back home.
However, to make that come out even, the batts have to be down enough to take all 50 amps from the new alternator, where they might be able to take 25 if they are not that low. Am I better off idling for an hour every second day at 50 or every day at 25? Does it matter for the camping activity scenario? Needs some figuring out.
I just did four days as is and was maybe at 55% SOC on departure from about 420AH of bank so that's 189AH net used over 4 days or 49AH net a day. If I ran them down another 49 net on the fifth day, 238/420 = 43% SOC --big deal.
But that was not quite the same scenario so net AH use might be more per day. Anyway, maybe one more 12v instead of two? Adds about 55AH to the existing bank. Might not need any more batts. Also I could cut in the "inverter bank" which has two batts if the main bank got way too low by using jumper cables. Redundancy.
I am inclined to just leave the alternator as is ( don't want it to catch fire though!), and dicker with battery bank configuration. Might be ok as is. Another RVer doing things his way might have a different solution.
But it does illustrate my topic here, that you need a scenario to base your equipment needs upon. Also that you are not stuck with what your RV came with. Renovate! :)
Two more batteries (I have room for two more) at 225AH would provide 125AH no problem and would be recharged once back home.
However, to make that come out even, the batts have to be down enough to take all 50 amps from the new alternator, where they might be able to take 25 if they are not that low. Am I better off idling for an hour every second day at 50 or every day at 25? Does it matter for the camping activity scenario? Needs some figuring out.
I just did four days as is and was maybe at 55% SOC on departure from about 420AH of bank so that's 189AH net used over 4 days or 49AH net a day. If I ran them down another 49 net on the fifth day, 238/420 = 43% SOC --big deal.
But that was not quite the same scenario so net AH use might be more per day. Anyway, maybe one more 12v instead of two? Adds about 55AH to the existing bank. Might not need any more batts. Also I could cut in the "inverter bank" which has two batts if the main bank got way too low by using jumper cables. Redundancy.
I am inclined to just leave the alternator as is ( don't want it to catch fire though!), and dicker with battery bank configuration. Might be ok as is. Another RVer doing things his way might have a different solution.
But it does illustrate my topic here, that you need a scenario to base your equipment needs upon. Also that you are not stuck with what your RV came with. Renovate! :)
