How long should a battery last?

Veebyes wrote:
No matter what you see on TV you can't have all of the conveniences of home in a TT that only has an itty bitty group 24 battery bank.

When it comes to dry camping battery bank capacity & fresh water capacity is King. Sure, one person can get by one night with a single group 24 being very frugal with the power use. Add another person with the additional use of everything 12V & that group 24 is dead very quickly.

For 13 years of our boating days we were out every weekend, 2 nights, May to October. No generator. No solar onboard. Always 'on the hook' anchored someplace. The battery bank consisted of two group 31 gel cells linked through a battery switch enabling the use of battery #1, battery #2, or both combined.

We had to be very conscious of power use. Enough power had to be there to start the diesel when it was time to move, hence the battery switch to isolate one of the batteries & use the other as the 'house' battery on anchor.

Unfortunately RVs are not setup that way, unless their owners 'marinize' their wiring & install a battery selector switch. A relatively inexpensive & simple thing to do.

With a setup such as this, if you leave something on & discharge one battery you have the other to switch to. It is always good to pack as much battery power as possible. You never know when you will really need it.

Eventually, I want to have all the comforts of full hook ups while boondocking. I know that is going to take a lot more components, but it is my plan to do over the next few years, starting with my own quiet generator. I know replacing the batteries will also be needed. This was about 1 weekend without that.

ewarnerusa wrote:
If he's boondocking the way I think of boondocking, he won't be in a campground with rules but rather a dispersed spot with only the neighbors he traveled with. I do realize there are campgrounds without hookups so valid points on generator hours/rules.

My initial generator set up will be to run it during daylight hours and evening till bed. Only shut it off when sleeping. However, eventually, I would like to only need a few hours of run time a day.

JimK-NY wrote:

swimmer_spe wrote:



I have plans of getting a generator in a year or so, so it is not that I bought the wrong equipment, but that I am not yet prepared for what eventually I will be for.

You have other issues besides just getting a generator. First you need a battery bank of appropriate size for your power consumption. Next besides just buying a generator, do you have any idea of how much generator time is needed to replenish and completely charge your batteries? You are going to have to let that generator run for hours assuming you are allowed to do that where you are staying. For example in many National Parks some campgrounds do not allow generators. In others use is limited to a few hours a day corresponding to meal times. If you do stay where generator use is not restricted, you might be subject to listening to a campground full of noisy generators.

Or are you just willing to limit almost all of your camping to RV parks with hook ups?

Do you really think you bought the right equipment? Does it work for you now? Will it be what you want later on? If so, then great.

All of that is why I am not buying one right now. I need to figure out a lot more than just run the generator. I know it is not as simple as run the generator and you are good.

No matter what you see on TV you can't have all of the conveniences of home in a TT that only has an itty bitty group 24 battery bank.

When it comes to dry camping battery bank capacity & fresh water capacity is King. Sure, one person can get by one night with a single group 24 being very frugal with the power use. Add another person with the additional use of everything 12V & that group 24 is dead very quickly.

For 13 years of our boating days we were out every weekend, 2 nights, May to October. No generator. No solar onboard. Always 'on the hook' anchored someplace. The battery bank consisted of two group 31 gel cells linked through a battery switch enabling the use of battery #1, battery #2, or both combined.

We had to be very conscious of power use. Enough power had to be there to start the diesel when it was time to move, hence the battery switch to isolate one of the batteries & use the other as the 'house' battery on anchor.

Unfortunately RVs are not setup that way, unless their owners 'marinize' their wiring & install a battery selector switch. A relatively inexpensive & simple thing to do.

With a setup such as this, if you leave something on & discharge one battery you have the other to switch to. It is always good to pack as much battery power as possible. You never know when you will really need it.

^^That will make a difference! My FW came with a good quality ProDyn converter, with smart charge.

JimK-NY wrote:

swimmer_spe wrote:



I have plans of getting a generator in a year or so, so it is not that I bought the wrong equipment, but that I am not yet prepared for what eventually I will be for.

You have other issues besides just getting a generator. First you need a battery bank of appropriate size for your power consumption. Next besides just buying a generator, do you have any idea of how much generator time is needed to replenish and completely charge your batteries? You are going to have to let that generator run for hours assuming you are allowed to do that where you are staying. For example in many National Parks some campgrounds do not allow generators. In others use is limited to a few hours a day corresponding to meal times. If you do stay where generator use is not restricted, you might be subject to listening to a campground full of noisy generators.

Or are you just willing to limit almost all of your camping to RV parks with hook ups?

Do you really think you bought the right equipment? Does it work for you now? Will it be what you want later on? If so, then great.

This opens up another can of worms, depending on what converter you have will play into how long you would need to run a genny.

WFCO's are pretty popular, but their performance is questionable at best.

I can say that when I changed my WFCO to a Progressive Dynamics, my genny run time was reduced to a few hours daily. YMMV

ewarnerusa wrote:
If he's boondocking the way I think of boondocking, he won't be in a campground with rules but rather a dispersed spot with only the neighbors he traveled with. I do realize there are campgrounds without hookups so valid points on generator hours/rules.

Yes, this is what he stated early on! He does boondock on a rare occasion, with friends that are running a gen. He cannot hook to theirs, so would need his own.

Getting one like I mentioned earlier in thread, would work fine! Inexpensive, plenty of power (no not AC), and very quiet, especially when in Eco mode. He could run it all day, even at night, and not be bothered by sound. Yes, it will work with a good G24 single battery.

Like I mentioned earlier, when deciding no longer needed, he'll get 2/3s of his money back, so actual cost of use, over several years is minimal.

Champion makes an assortment of light wt, low cost, quality inverter gen sets, that have very good backing from manufacturer!

Jerry

If he's boondocking the way I think of boondocking, he won't be in a campground with rules but rather a dispersed spot with only the neighbors he traveled with. I do realize there are campgrounds without hookups so valid points on generator hours/rules.

swimmer_spe wrote:

JimK-NY wrote:
This thread reminds me of a friend who bought an EV and wanted to take a road trip. In theory they should be able to drive a couple hundred miles before charging so not much of a road trip. To make it worse they wanted to travel in the winter months. The batteries are less efficient in the cold and battery power is needed to heat the interior of the car. So no road trips in that car.

They had great intentions. First they thought they would save on operating costs. We live in an area where electric rates are way, way over the national average so that is not going to happen. Next they thought they were helping to keep pollution down and doing their part to reduce global warming. That electric power did not come free. It comes from a power plant burning natural gas or an older plant burning oil.

Sometimes there just isn't a good fix after buying the wrong thing.

I have plans of getting a generator in a year or so, so it is not that I bought the wrong equipment, but that I am not yet prepared for what eventually I will be for.

I don't know what the genny rules are like in Ontario but if you ever do a trip to BC all the provincial parks and such are limited to 8am to 10am and then again at usually 6pm to 8pm, not enough for the average person to recharge their batteries. yes, you will extend your power a little, but for the price you're going to pay for that generator you could put a decent solar setup in so that you could run all day and even charge while you're driving. if you can install it yourself you can have a great setup for about 6-700 dollars cdn (not including your batteries) that will be 6-700 watts of panels. to give you an idea I got a system installed in my 5th wheel as part of the purchase deal before I knew how easy it was to do it yourself so I spent way too much money, but it is a 480 watt setup and four 6V GC2 batteries (the new ones are only 420AH capacity as I finally retired my old batteries last spring after almost 14 years.

With that set up I can turn on the inverter and make coffee with the Keurig and toast for breakfast, then after super make coffee again. a few minutes of microwave time, and let the kids watch a movie before bed (when they were young and liked coming with us haha. I also have run the furnace all day in the fall where it was getting close to freezing at night and the batteries would be at 100% when the sun went down every night. the next day it would recover the evening/night usage by around 1pm. I have a generator at home, but it has never left home, and there has been only 1 time in the last 10 years that I wish I had one and that was so I could run the ac during the heat wave two summers ago. 48C wasn't fun but it cooled down enough to sleep by midnight... The money I spent on that genny was wasted and I could have done my full set up on my little truck camper I bought 3 years ago.

swimmer_spe wrote:



I have plans of getting a generator in a year or so, so it is not that I bought the wrong equipment, but that I am not yet prepared for what eventually I will be for.

You have other issues besides just getting a generator. First you need a battery bank of appropriate size for your power consumption. Next besides just buying a generator, do you have any idea of how much generator time is needed to replenish and completely charge your batteries? You are going to have to let that generator run for hours assuming you are allowed to do that where you are staying. For example in many National Parks some campgrounds do not allow generators. In others use is limited to a few hours a day corresponding to meal times. If you do stay where generator use is not restricted, you might be subject to listening to a campground full of noisy generators.

Or are you just willing to limit almost all of your camping to RV parks with hook ups?

Do you really think you bought the right equipment? Does it work for you now? Will it be what you want later on? If so, then great.