RoyB wrote:
AS you notice if you want to be successful you have to do some planning and beefing up of systems and batteries.
Once you get setup it is a very pleasant way of camping. We only run our 2KW Honda generator for about three hours each morning and can run all the 120VAC items we want to run from a 600W PSW Inverter. We also run all of the 12VDC items we want to run which are direct connected to the battery bank. Our Battery bank is 255AHs capacity and it will drop down to around 12.0VDC by 8AM the next morning. This is when we want to connect the trailer 30A shore power cable to the 2KW Honda Generator 120VAC receptacle using the proper RV30A-15A long adapter (WALMART) and this allows the on-board converter/charger unit to re-charge our battery bank. Since we are using a smart-mode technology converter/charger this will re-charge our 255AH battery bank back to to its 90% charge state in as little as three hours of generator run time.
Where we camp here on the East side of the US most camp grounds and Natl Parks have generator run time restrictions in place and only a few hours during the day is allowed to run the generator. Never after 8PM at night...
OUr game plan was to decide what we wanted to have with us and beef-up the battery bank and system to do this in the one day/night run off the batteries and then re-charge back up to 90% charge state the next morning so we can do this all over again the next day/night battery run... This method does not do any harm to our batteries at all. However, we can only do this 50% to 90% charge state cycle for about 12-14 days when we must re-charge the batteries to their full 100% charge state which takes around 12-13 hours of generator run time to complete the charge cycle. Since we can never run the generators this long here on the East side of the US this is usually when we head for the house haha.. Watching the battery voltage drop from inside the trailer really helps us out keeping up with our approximate battery bank charge state.
Just passing along how we manage our batteries when camping off the power grid...
Roy Ken
Hi Roy Ken,
I have finally decided to buy a Yamaha generator 2000 (the most quiet so we don't get any evil stares), to power up the trailer. We only go dry camping about once a year, and I had to choose the most economical option. Since my wiring and technical skills are almost nil, this is my best option. Going to the dealer would have cost me another $500, with the solar option. I do understand that my window of charging up is limited. I will just have to do with what I have. Thanks for the input.
