boondocking and batteries
i'm waiting for my northstar 850 sc to be delivered and find i'm thinking alot about battery power.i'd really like to hear from the boondockers and especially the northstar owners as to what i should ...
Forum Discussion
Besides my Monthly trips, I used to spend a week dry camping in the summer.
Your 12v power draw will usually go something like this:
- Furnace
- Whatever your plugging in
- Lights
- Water pump
- Parasitic loads (smoke/leak detector, exc.)
We found that if we just used the furnace for a while before going to bed and a while just after getting up we could save a bunch of power.
I used to plug in an inverter to charge an old power hungry laptop. I now have a less power hungry one and a DC/DC converter to charge it.
Old style CAR bulbs use an ENORMOUS amount of electricity. Back in the day I designed and built my own 1/2W LED replacements. These days there are 1W & 2W commercial models that put out a lot of light!! With LED's if you just turn on the ones that you need when you need them, they don't draw much power overall.
Personally I don't worry to much about the parasitic loads or the water pump, its not like we're pumping water all day+night.
Here's what I recommend. Get yourself a Digital Volt Meter. These can be had for 3-7$ at Harbor Freight or many home improvement or hardware stores.
There are a number of lead acid battery voltage=%capacity used charts on the internet, find one and copy the numbers down for reference.
Go camping in your TC just like you would normally but this time measure the battery voltage when you start camping, then just before bedtime and when you get up in the AM and finally after 24hrs of camping.
It is recommended that lead acid batteries are only discharged 30-50%. So your first reading (when you got there) hopefully verified that you have a mostly full battery. The measurement just before bedtime hopefully showed that you have enough energy to make it through the night and when you measured in the AM it hopefully not only confirmed that you had enough energy, but hopefully enough to last the full 24hrs after starting.
The idea here is that worse case your battery voltage should never drop below +12.1V. (50% charge) You may of dipped down to +12.1V fairly quickly or after 24hrs not at all. Now that you have an idea of your energy use you just have to ether add AH capacity so you can meet your total hours dry camping or use less power or add another power source to charge your batteries.
My 1st camper came with automotive bulbs and a type #24 battery. I could barely last 6pm-6am without starting my truck to recharge in the mornings.
Your 12v power draw will usually go something like this:
- Furnace
- Whatever your plugging in
- Lights
- Water pump
- Parasitic loads (smoke/leak detector, exc.)
We found that if we just used the furnace for a while before going to bed and a while just after getting up we could save a bunch of power.
I used to plug in an inverter to charge an old power hungry laptop. I now have a less power hungry one and a DC/DC converter to charge it.
Old style CAR bulbs use an ENORMOUS amount of electricity. Back in the day I designed and built my own 1/2W LED replacements. These days there are 1W & 2W commercial models that put out a lot of light!! With LED's if you just turn on the ones that you need when you need them, they don't draw much power overall.
Personally I don't worry to much about the parasitic loads or the water pump, its not like we're pumping water all day+night.
Here's what I recommend. Get yourself a Digital Volt Meter. These can be had for 3-7$ at Harbor Freight or many home improvement or hardware stores.
There are a number of lead acid battery voltage=%capacity used charts on the internet, find one and copy the numbers down for reference.
Go camping in your TC just like you would normally but this time measure the battery voltage when you start camping, then just before bedtime and when you get up in the AM and finally after 24hrs of camping.
It is recommended that lead acid batteries are only discharged 30-50%. So your first reading (when you got there) hopefully verified that you have a mostly full battery. The measurement just before bedtime hopefully showed that you have enough energy to make it through the night and when you measured in the AM it hopefully not only confirmed that you had enough energy, but hopefully enough to last the full 24hrs after starting.
The idea here is that worse case your battery voltage should never drop below +12.1V. (50% charge) You may of dipped down to +12.1V fairly quickly or after 24hrs not at all. Now that you have an idea of your energy use you just have to ether add AH capacity so you can meet your total hours dry camping or use less power or add another power source to charge your batteries.
My 1st camper came with automotive bulbs and a type #24 battery. I could barely last 6pm-6am without starting my truck to recharge in the mornings.
