Boondock electricity
Hello all, I am a new member and a new pop up camper owner, it is a 2005 rockwood 1640. I am interested in making it self contained for Boondock camping. from the research I have done it looks like i...
Forum Discussion
We get by very well with just 255AHs of battery capacity. This requires us to re-charge each day however by connecting the POPUP shore power cable directly to my 2KW Honda Generator using a RV30A-15A adapter (WALMART)
The biggest thing that helped us was changing out the incandescent automotive bulbs for LED boards. Big energy savings here.
We run almost everything we want off the batteries and a smaller inverter for some 120VAC things. It is all planned to reduce our battery drain down to 12.0VDC at 8AM the next morning when we are allowed to run our generator to recharge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state in a three hour generator run time. Then we can do it all over again the next day/night run off the batteries. We can do this 50% to 90% battery cycles for 12-14 times before having to re-charge back up to a full 100% charge state. A full 100% charge unfortunately takes around 12 hours so this usually is not allowed at most camp grounds to run the generator that long here on the East side of the US. Even most Natl Forest here doesn't allow it. This is when we head back for the house.
We do just about everything we do at a regular camp ground with electric except no air conditioning or high wattage microwave. Everything else is fair game.
Adding solar panels is great after you have mastered how to camp off the power grid using your batteries. Using the solar panels will help recharge your batteries during the high sun part of the day and will help cut down on having to run the generator as much. That is our goal at any rate... Just now thinking about adding solar since starting out using my OFF-ROAD POPUP in late 2008. My POPUP roof will only allow maybe three panels to be installed on the roof. Looking for two 120WATT Panels on one end and maybe a 240WATT Panel on the other end. Each 120WATT solar panel will only give 14.4VDC AT 5-6AMPS during high sun. Not alot of juice to re-charge your batteries in a quick three hour time span...
It does take some planning to be successful otherwise it will get dark on you around 10PM at night haha
Roy Ken
The biggest thing that helped us was changing out the incandescent automotive bulbs for LED boards. Big energy savings here.
We run almost everything we want off the batteries and a smaller inverter for some 120VAC things. It is all planned to reduce our battery drain down to 12.0VDC at 8AM the next morning when we are allowed to run our generator to recharge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state in a three hour generator run time. Then we can do it all over again the next day/night run off the batteries. We can do this 50% to 90% battery cycles for 12-14 times before having to re-charge back up to a full 100% charge state. A full 100% charge unfortunately takes around 12 hours so this usually is not allowed at most camp grounds to run the generator that long here on the East side of the US. Even most Natl Forest here doesn't allow it. This is when we head back for the house.
We do just about everything we do at a regular camp ground with electric except no air conditioning or high wattage microwave. Everything else is fair game.
Adding solar panels is great after you have mastered how to camp off the power grid using your batteries. Using the solar panels will help recharge your batteries during the high sun part of the day and will help cut down on having to run the generator as much. That is our goal at any rate... Just now thinking about adding solar since starting out using my OFF-ROAD POPUP in late 2008. My POPUP roof will only allow maybe three panels to be installed on the roof. Looking for two 120WATT Panels on one end and maybe a 240WATT Panel on the other end. Each 120WATT solar panel will only give 14.4VDC AT 5-6AMPS during high sun. Not alot of juice to re-charge your batteries in a quick three hour time span...
It does take some planning to be successful otherwise it will get dark on you around 10PM at night haha
Roy Ken
