Hello, Recently we,(my family and I purchased a 1o75 Dodge Sportsman Lazy Daze Class C motorbike. Its a temporary fix to a desperate need of housing situation, and I have to admit that I'm in over my head!! I'm still figuring out the water and propane systems, which seem pretty simple, however I am stuck with the battery/power inverter assembly or diagram.. I quickly learned that trial and error is not an optimal method of knowledge or completion in Deep cycle systems with voltage ampliried through a 2000 watt inverter and 3 600ma 12v deep cycle batteries. I have no generator or solar panels and very little,accessory-wise, works without shore power. I've read somewhere here that many set ups were not made to work without shore power but I'm in a situation where I will need that often. We are pretty poor so with that in mind do you have any advice on an affordable boondock set up? Also a wiring dagram for a starting batt, 3 12 v 600ma deep cycle Batts. and a 2000 watt inverter. A thong CentralcoastCalifamily cantcontent://media/external/file/24965

It is not easy to just go purchase an older RV setup and then jump right into so called street boondocking and be successful.It took me a couple of years to get somewhat successful camping in my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer setup just living a week off of the batteries without shore power.You have to decide what you want to run off the batteries and then have a big enough battery bank to sustain this. My plan ended up being camping off my batteries for one night with my 255AH Battery bank and then have a re-charge capability the next morning using my 2KW Honda Generator to run my trailer on-board PD9260C 60AMP Smart Mode converter/charger setup to get my batteries back up to a usable charge state again.The batteries will want to not get discharged below the 50% charge state overnite which is roughly around 12.0VDC and then they need to be re-charged as soon as possible back up to their 90% charge state. Not following this routine will end doing harm to the batteries and they will need to be replaced.In my setup I only had a 600WATT Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter and I would use around 300Watts of 12VDC Power mainly between 6PM and 11Pm watching TV and keeping a few working lights along with computers/tablets etc functional. No way can I even think of running the Air Conditioner or Microwave off my 255AH Battery setup...Stovetop and outside grill would runoff of propane. Hot water for us was usually heated up on the stove top to wash dishes etc. Washups was standing in front of the kitchen sink - not much privacy here haha...In your case your description of your CLASS C is vague in addition to your battery bank description. Most of us understand AH ratings not MA rating... I'm think your class C is 15-foot or so in length. Might look something like this...In my opinion you are going to need a 2KW generator for sure to keep your battery bank charged up each day of use. The 2000WATT Power Inverter will want to see 12VDC @ 165AMPS DC current if loaded down to full load. Thats a long way from my 20AMPS draw on my 300WATT battery drain on my three 85AH 12V batteries in parallel. You are going to need a very large AH rated battery bank to support 165AMPS 'PLUS' DC Current drain.If you make it through the one night then you will need to re-charge your battery system with something... Each battery in your system will want to see 17-20AMPS DC current when first hit with 14.4VDC Charge voltage if you want them charged in a three hour time frame. You can get from the 50% charge state to the 90% charge in a three hour generator run time doing this. Three batteries in your battery bank will be much like my setup whereas when I first hit my battery bank with 14.4VDC I immediately see a 53AMP DC Current demand from the batteries. After an hour of charging at 14.4VDC this current demand will have tapered back to around 8AMPS or so for the whole bank and will get to the 90% charge state in about three hours time. Then and only then can you use the batteries again and expect good performance for the next day/night off them. Also you can only do about 12-14 charge cycles from the 50% to 90% charge cycles before you have to fully charge your battery bank to 100% charge. If you don't do this then the batteries will will be harmed and eventually have to be replaced. A 100% charge on my three 85AH 12V Batteries in parallel will take a good 12-13 hours of charging starting out with 14.4VDC. That's a long time to be running a Generator non stop.Here on the East side of the US we always run into generator run time restrictions at the public camp grounds. I guess where you will be doing your street boondocking it will be a hit and miss being able to run your generator... A typical truck start battery (90-100AHs) alternator setup would run a 2000WATT POWER Inverter full loaded for maybe 5-10 minutes before draining down the start battery. It may also damage your truck alternator as well.Just passing all of this along to get your thinking going and what you might expect to overcome. IMO it's not going to be an easy task keeping your batteries charged-up without shore power, solar panels, or generator... Most folks will think heck I can just run the truck motor a hour or so each day and all will be fine...Good luck with those thoughts...Just my thoughts here - I'm sure others have their different plans to accomplish this...Roy Ken

Hi,Having the batteries is a good start. However, you have to have a way to recharge them. The cheapest way is shore power.If you are full time and are fairly frugal with power use 600 watts of solar panels (which may cost say $1000.00 for parts) would be possible.The most expensive way is to run a small generator.

Do you have to stay in California?It might be simpler and cheaper in the long run to move somewhere with cheap campgrounds. We've come across campgrounds in the $200-400/month range. Then you have regular access to water & electric, you don't need to burn gas charging the batteries and you aren't always worried about being chased off for parking where you aren't supposed to.

Inverter & battery is just temporary power. You need to charge those batteries daily. Immediate solution is a generator or utility power or do without.What do you expect to run on a daily basis? Typically for air conditioning you will need to run the 4000 watt generator continuously. Microwave will run on inverter for short periods however it takes 5x as long to recharge vs the power you pull out of the batteries. Best right now to just fire up the generator. Anything done in the microwave can be done on the stove top. Just takes more effort.The rest runs on propane or 12v directly.So what do you really expect to run?Here is some general reading: The 12 Volt Side of Life

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Help me hook up my battery/inverter wiring before I crack!

westend
Explorer
Mar 08, 2016
The batteries are connected in parallel, i.e. a cable from one battery's positive to the next positive. Same with the negative, all connected together. One lead from the end of this arrangement, the negative, to frame ground. One lead, the positive, from the other end, to 12V distribution panel or common stud from converter and distribution panel.

battery wiring

The inverter is connected directly to the battery terminals with large cables, a fuse located on the positive battery terminal or cable. One lead to inverter from positive and one lead to negative terminals. Use the shortest possible cables but try to locate inverter outside of battery mounting area.

You can download instructions and diagrams from the name brand inverter mfg's.

Note: Your small hybrid batteries will not support any duration or full draw from a 2000W inverter. In fact, I would not choose to even install it. If you're poor and that's all you have, you can try it but don't expect it to work for very long before the inverter goes into protection mode or the batteries are dead.

Best boondocking setup for the severely poor is a small genset from HF or Craigslist. It will be noisy and will take a few hours to get batteries back to 90 percent charged. I would be thinking long and hard about using just the 12V system. You can buy chargers for phones and laptop and even run a TV from 12V. Upgrade the batteries at the first opportunity. Get true deep cycle batteries if making this a long term living solution.
Another good thing is solar power. I use a single 235W module, a small MPPT controller, and a 1000W inverter. This solar system keeps all of my 12V charged and runs a small dorm fridge and 120V entertainment gear. It is a lot quieter and cheaper than a generator.

Good luck and happy off-grid living!

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