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benjaminfoster
Explorer III
Mar 29, 2026

Tips for Managing Power Usage While Boondocking?

Hi everyone,

I’m fairly new to RVing and recently started trying a bit of boondocking. I’ve noticed that managing power becomes a lot more challenging when you’re not hooked up.

Right now I’m trying to be careful with lights, appliances, and charging devices, but I still feel like my battery drains faster than expected.

I’m running a basic setup (no major solar yet), and I’m wondering what habits or upgrades made the biggest difference for you.

Do you rely mostly on generators, solar, or just strict power management?

Any tips or lessons learned would really help!

Thanks in advance

1 Reply

  • reraly its a bit of both having a way to charge your batteries, having enough battery capacity and power managment.  

    what do you have for battery/ies right now?  if its just the one the dealer throws in then you are going to have issues.  so what you have to figure out is how long your battery last with what you are doing right now and how long you want it to last.  for example if your battery starts going dead after 1 night and you normal go out for a long weekend type things then you need over three times the battery capacity.  the good thing is that the batteries that come with the camper are only 80AH and if you want them to last you can only use 1/2 of that.  but for a rough referance if you are using up that battery to the point where you lights start to dim in 24 hours then you know you are using close to 80AH in one day.  

    so the easiest thing to do right now is put better batteries in, so what I recomend now is people upgrade with LiFePO4 batteries.  for usable AH they are the cheepest battery you can get per AH wise and also by life span.  so for instance you could go out and get something like a wattcycle 314AH mini.  so thats almost 4 times the total capacity but the difference is with LiFePO4 you can use 100% of the capacity without worring about shortining the life of the battery as they are traditionaly rated at 100% depth of discharge, plus there is no maintenance aside from fully charging them once and a while to keep the cells balanced, and the life span is much much longer than a traditional battey so you will probably go a ong time with out having to replace batteries unless you do something to it.  

    with the right capacity you can camp as long as you normaly want to camp, then later you can add solar which if sized right will let you go indefinatly, or at least till the tanks need dumping 😉

     

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