Jim,
You are right on both actually. For shorter weekend trips with my daughter, I want to be prepared to get by a couple of days dry camping with increased usage that includes more xbox, TV, etc. When I'm on my own, these trips could be more like a week at a time. But my power requirements should drop as I'm not a big TV or Xbox guy, but I do need my laptop.
I do plan on installing a solar solution to help me stay charged on my week long dry camping trips. Before I layer on that investment, I want to better understand my power usage. But regardless, I did plan on using the gen for the Microwave and A/C if a simple fan doesn't cut it. I should have also mentioned, that I do have a CPAP (no humidifier heater) that fits into this equation as well. So there will be a small load throughout the night.
As for the battery, I do not have one laying around. The existing battery does have a small charge, and I did notice the cells appear to be either low, or dry. I'll try adding some distilled water and picking up a hydrometer later today.
I like the idea of the driveway camping test. Sounds like a great idea. I suppose I could get a 12v adapter for my laptop and just connect via WiFi to the house. It's going to be tough to get any feeling for power usage without the inverter though. But still, I foresee more of this as the configuration matures :)
Best,
Tim
HiTech wrote:
Tsweez do you have any idea what your camping style will be? How long dry camping at a time? From the mods you are talking about it sounds like either weekend dry camping with pretty heavy battery usage, or longer trips trying to minimize genset time.
Also just to get going do you have any old 12v battery you can toss in to replace the dead one, and/or are you sure the coach battery is unrecoverable? I ask because sometimes trying things out adjusts your requirements vs. what you believe them to be on paper. Driveway camping doing some tests could be handy to try some systems out.
Jim
