will frig drain battery

riven1950 wrote:
Almot, I hear you about the solar. Been reading up a little on it. Not a lot of good boondocking choices close to home on NC coast. We have only had the TT 1 year and always have camped with power. Thinking about a longer trip out west and considering solar / genny, although the genny would not help where we are at now. Neighbors in subdivision may not appreciate it. Genny would be good add on at home because we are in hurricane alley ( for power outages ).

re installed battery last night about 10:30 after a 2 1/2 hour charge. Just checked and it is 12.65V. Will charge for about 3 hours this afternoon and it should be good till we leave at 7:00AM tomorrow. Thks for all the advice. Did not realize it would drain that fast.

The last 1.5 hours gets you so little recharge with a generator and your stock charge controller. Take a look at your electrical panel and see if you can get the model number and brand of Charge controller in your rig, and post it up here. WFCO's are noted for being fine on your battery if you are plugged in at a full hook up campsite, but they are not a very good application for dry camping, or when travelling in route and keeping things charged up.

Do a search on dry camping charge controllers and and names like Progressive Dynamics, Iota's and 3 or 4 stage charge controllers will come up regularly. Why? Because they flat out work better, charge more efficiently, can be programmed to charge in bulk mode quickly, and allow you to enjoy more options besides babysitting your generator for 3 hours 2x a day.

For optimum results, a good charge controller on a single Group 24 Deep cycle battery for an hour in the morning, and a solar panel that will put out 7 to 10 amps for 5 to 8 hours daily to top charge the battery off on sunny days is a good solution to the never ending parasitic draw on a battery day in and day out while camping.

Your other option is to get more amp hours in the form of batteries to get you through the cloudy days by having more ampere hour capacity before dropping the voltage on the battery excessively. More battery capacity will also get you through more road time to your destination before needing a recharge due to low voltage. 2 group 24 batteries will get you about 150 amp hours. 2 6v golf cart batteries will get you 210 to 224 amp hours.

The set up I now use on my 21 foot travel trailer consists of a PD 9245C with 3 stage pendant, and a 120 watt folding portable solar panel and controller from Solar Blvd.

Very happy with the results after camping over a week near Las Vegas and at Quartzsite off the grid. Still debating as to whether I even need more solar yet with this set up. 45 minutes to an hour in bulk mode first thing in the morning, then let the solar do the rest of it to top things off during the day seems to keep my battery happy, so far. Eventually, I will go with a pair of GC-2 6v batteries.