Jackery 500 versus my RV battery

imo, The Jackery and it's ilk are flummery of the worst sort.

You are lightyears ahead by using a stand alone inverter instead of the extremely expensive per watt-hour Jackery.

There might be a good reason for an RVer to buy a Jackery but those reasons are few and far between IMO. Horrendous prices.

jjrbus wrote:
"solar generator" They are not solar, they generate nothing. If I put a solar panel and a couple outlets on my mower is it a solar generator?

Solar Generator is a brilliant marketing term. The ones I've seen are solar, with portable panels. Inside the box is a lithium battery and an inverter. Since most people don't understand solar/controller/battery/inverter, but they do understand 'generator', they're pretty neat devices - albeit expensive.

I have a Jackery 1000 and there great until they break and they won't fix it..A 100ah lifepo4 battery for around $300 plus is a much better investment...I have a few solar generators and they have there place but id buy a Bluetti before I would A jackery simply because of support..Bluetti took care of my issues immediately and using lifepo4 in some units is a bonus plus faster charging ..My Jackery 1000 is a paper weight and they won't answer my emails....

I have the jackery 240 that I have had for 3 months. I agree you are paying for portable power but I have found a lot of things I do with it. It is nice to have power anywhere.

I find myself confused, "solar generator" They are not solar, they generate nothing. If I put a solar panel and a couple outlets on my mower is it a solar generator?

40 Ah at 12 volts from the Duracell is 480 Wh. The two are almost identical in usable capacity. I wouldn't be afraid to take the AGM down to 50% or even below as long as it's not every day.

Your numbers are off. The 40 AH @12 v is conservative but correct for your current battery. To compare the Jackery you need to convert 500 Watt hour divided by 12 v = 41.6 AH. They have close to identical useable power.

You laptop charger will pull 90 watts divided by 12 v = 7.5 amps. That seems excessive. I would check that number. That is only roughly 5 hours of charging for either the house battery or the Jackery. Of course, 5 hours of charging is not 5 hours of laptop use. Charging should take well less than an hour and should give you many hours of use off of the laptop battery.

Clearly buying conventional batteries costs much less. Battery banks work best when all of the batteries are identical and of the same age. If you want more capacity and your existing battery is a few years old, then it makes sense to buy at least 2 new batteries. There is another common misconception that 6 v batteries will give you more amp hours. Remember to equate the AH of a 6 v battery to 12v, you need to divide the 6 v AH by 2. You will pay roughly the same and have batteries of equivalent size and weight when buying either 6 v or 12 v batteries. 6 v batteries, especially "golf cart" batteries are built for deep discharge. You can also buy deep discharge 12 v batteries. The typical car battery is optimized for quick cranking power. They work in an RV. They are not ideal but are readily available and often relatively low cost.

jornvango wrote:
My Casita trailer has one Duracell AGM group 27 battery with 92 amp hour capacity.
If I can use about 40% before needing to charge it, that's about 40 amp hours I can use.

IMO, you're being way too conservative in only discharging it 40 percent.

At 60 percent discharge, you will still get a lot of charge-discharge cycles out of it.

Your numbers are correct. You are paying a lot for that portability.

When it is time to replace the battery on the trailer, use two 6V golf cart batteries. You will get about 220 Ah and the cost will be around $200.