Boondock electricity

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

as stated, it depends on what you're going to want to power.
for electric heating and cooling, you'll have to have a generator..get the quietest one you can find.
for lights, phones, lap tops, tv etc. batteries will do and you should look into a couple solar power units to recharge your batteries...if you don't want to get a genny..or even if you do. solar is a great way to keep your batteries charged up because it works all day while you're out sightseeing, etc.

Hi, and welcome.
Before you invest a bunch of money in solar power and inverters, you need to figure out what power you will be using on a daily basis so you can figure out:
1) how many batteries you need. A 12V 225AH battery will provide 1.35KW before it is reduced to a 50% charge.
2) How much solar power you will need to charge them up during the day.

First out of the gate - don't even THINK about electric heat, it just is not practical to carry and charge enough batteries for that. (One of those batteries above would run a 1500 watt for less than 1 hour, assuming 100% efficiency of the inverter).
Even running the 12V fan on the propane furnace uses a LOT of power.

Most folks end up with a small generator (eg Honda 2000) to power the heavy duty stuff and charge the batteries. If they want to run A/C, then a large gen (3Kw to 4Kw) is usually required.

Good luck

In either case you'll still need a small generator to recharge the batteries on a daily basis. It takes a heap of solar power to recharge rather than maintain a set of batts.