Dry camping, batteries and slide out

Sometimes things that you don't think of kill batteries - we learned that if our propane furnace runs at all, it uses battery power even though it's a propane furnace - we learned the hard way in S Utah about this time last year. Dead batteries 4 AM, no heat, 24 degrees outside.

Do you use an inverter? That costs more amps than you think! Not just the amps for whatever you're running - charging a computer, phone etc. Powering a microwave or coffeemaker - ouch!

We're newbies but have some prior experience in living aboard our cruising sailboat and being totally independent energy & otherwise. Here's a blog post I wrote when we first started traveling in our travel trailer. How To Calculate Amp Usage in an RV

Hopefully this is helpful.

Plugging in the 7 way wont give you high amperage. You may need to let the TV run awhile to bring the battery up. Yes, it does connect the TV battery to the rig but again the wire is usually small. Some 7 ways are not hot until the tv is started. We need to know what you have for solar in order to say anything about it. If it's 30 watts forget it. If it's 200 or 400 watts you may have a problem. As mentioned get a digital volt meter. I shoot for staying above 12 volts all the time.

I assume you are running an inverter to power microwave or coffee pot? Just running LED lights and the water pump should not drain your batteries in a weekend.

We have done multiple one-week trips with one battery and no solar. I now do have solar, and never have a problem with low batteries. But, we only run lights and water pump from our batteries (unless we are going to a wedding, and DW needs to use her blowdrier on the inverter. Still, that is short-time use.)

Watch what you use, as inverters draw lots of juice!

Also, what is the watt rating of your solar? We have two 100w panels, and are almost always full-charge.

I didnt plug in before this trip. I thought sitting unused in California sun would be enough solar charge.

So when I plug the trailer into truck 7 pin hook up that will give trailer the power to bring slide in?

How long did you plug in the RV before the trip?

Slide motors take a lot of amperage, so to recharge batteries or run the slides in might take a long time or blow the 30a truck to rig fuse, better in that case to use booster cables from tow to rig batteries to recharge rig or power the slides.
A weekend of camping can easily drain two good batteries. Watch the voltage!

If your battery is dead just plug the trailer into the truck and run the slides in and the jakes up.

Get a voltage gauge so you can keep an eye on the battery voltage, don't let the voltage get below 10.5 volts.