First Dry Camping Experience

If you are going to boondock... Sooner or later you WILL come up short on battery power.
So you NEED a way to recharge them on site, without quitting and going home. Lots of ways to do it. They all have their pluses and minuses. I have and recommend a generator.
My reasons are it can give me plenty of power on demand. Rain or shine, night or day. It is like being plugged in to shore power.
In addition, all of the AC stuff such as microwave and Air conditioner TVs outlets etc, can all be powered without getting an inverter.

Solar and jumping off of the TV battery can recharge your battery, but will not provide the on demand hi power that a generator will. Each of those proponents have vocal fans of those methods, and I believe they have their place... But if you can only do one, and want it to be the most useful... Get a generator. Your wife with her young child will thank you.

On a side note: About a week ago we had a pretty good storm in Phoenix. 3 transformers in my neighborhood blew. Massive power outages everywhere. I hooked up my generators to my TT, and ran a electrical cord to my house's fridge. We spent a comfortable air.conditioned night in the TT, and did not lose any food. Many of my neighbors were panicking and scrambling, some trying to get a motel.... Well a lot of them were without power as well.

Having a generator can really save the day... And is nice to have when camping as well.:B

You need to either reduce your dependence on electronic devices or add a solar system or a generator.

Some Dometics don't have the heater. Some have a button on the control panel ("CLC", Climate Control), others have a switch along the bottom of the control panel (open the freezer to see it). Some don't have a switch (Dometic engineers are apparently clueless about how their products are used).

The Climate Control heater draws about 0.5 A. Significant, but not enough to drain a battery (in good shape) in a couple of days.

2 many 2 wrote:
My four year old Dometic fridge has no "humidity switch" on the door frame like my old rig. With some research I found out it is on ALL THE TIME draining the battery at about 1/2 amp per hour.

With some more research I found the wiring diagram on line and located the wire on the back of the fridge that feeds power to the humidity feature. I unhooked that wire and placed an in line fuse holder and re-connected it. If I ever want the humidity feature while on full hook-ups I simply put a 3amp fuse in the holder.

Great solution, and is exactly the same electrically as cutting the thicker red wire at the fridge's interior light.

PaulJ2 wrote:
My take on all this is--Batteries were not fully charged to begin with. Aggravated by the fridge moisture heater draining the batteries.
If the trailer was not allowed to charge for several days with the normal WFCO converter they probably were not fully charged.

My four year old Dometic fridge has no "humidity switch" on the door frame like my old rig. With some research I found out it is on ALL THE TIME draining the battery at about 1/2 amp per hour.

With some more research I found the wiring diagram on line and located the wire on the back of the fridge that feeds power to the humidity feature. I unhooked that wire and placed an in line fuse holder and re-connected it. If I ever want the humidity feature while on full hook-ups I simply put a 3amp fuse in the holder.

In the last four years I have never needed it. In case anyone is wondering, the humidity feature warms up the door frame of the fridge so moisture condensation droplets do not form on the door frame, usually between the freezer and fridge door.

X2 on the thought that your batteries were not fully charged regardless what the meter display may have indicated.

X2 that two batteries should last two days easily and more with some well thought out conservation.

If the batteries are the same ones that you posted back in May that were "dead" that could be part of the problem. My understanding is that running the batteries down that low, even just one time, can significantly reduce the serviceable life.

If your rig is in storage with no charger on the batteries your biggest challenge is going to be keeping the batteries up. Unless you want to bring the batteries home to keep them on a charger, you are going to need a solar panel.

Best of luck

profdant139 wrote:
oyarsa, first of all, congratulations on being located in Yakima -- you live in camping heaven. It takes us three days to get to your area, and there is so much great stuff available to you.

Second, the negative tone of some of the comments above is a little unfortunate. You are just making the usual newbie mistakes that almost all of us have made. No big deal. And do not give up on dry camping -- the boondocking near you is world-class.

Third, here is how to avoid the problem of the un-retracted jacks: after we did a similar thing, my wife and I created a "check before towing" checklist of all the things that have to be buttoned down before we actually start rolling. We keep the list in the cab of the truck.

After DW does a final walk-around, we go through the checklist, just like airline pilots do. Yes, it is a bit of overkill. And yes, after 13 years of trailering, we almost never forget a step, so the checklist is usually useless.

But not always. Once in a while, a missed step pops up (like "are the steps retracted??"), and we are glad for our plodding way of getting ready to roll.

Now, on to the batteries. We carry two group 31s, and I never let them get below 12.1 volts. They are carefully maintained on a BatteryMinderPlus, when we are at home. We have a 120 watt portable panel that tops off the battery each day.

With that setup (and careful use), we can go a week at a time without using our generator or plugging in to shore power.

You will gradually learn how to monitor your usage so as to extend the life of the batteries. It is not rocket science -- you don't have to be an expert. (I certainly am not.)

Finally, you need to find out if your fridge is drawing current to stay defrosted. That feature is a battery killer. It may take a while to figure out how to disable that defroster, but it is a job worth doing.

Hang in there! The learning curve for newbie drycampers is steep, but it does level off. And the payoff is huge.

Keep asking questions!! And ignore the replies that are not helpful.

Well said!

My take on all this is--Batteries were not fully charged to begin with. Aggravated by the fridge moisture heater draining the batteries.
If the trailer was not allowed to charge for several days with the normal WFCO converter they probably were not fully charged.

oyarsa wrote:
Jimlj, what are you using for solar? My trailer is supposedly pre-wired for solar, but it seems like I would need quite a bit of power, even if we didn't use the A/C.

I honestly don't know what the solar panel is. I used to work as an oilfield electrician and when we upgraded some remote locations with new bigger better systems I was able to dumpster dive and get the one I have. It's about 18"X30", not sure the wattage. I'm using a Sun Saver solar controller. My '05 Alpenlite trailer (built in your neck of the woods) was pre-wired for solar, but I didn't get an owners manual so I had no idea of where or how it was wired, so I did my own.
Don't get discouraged with dry camping. In my opinion it is the best experience as far as camping goes. I've been "dry" camping in one way or another for most of my 60 years.

oyarsa, first of all, congratulations on being located in Yakima -- you live in camping heaven. It takes us three days to get to your area, and there is so much great stuff available to you.

Second, the negative tone of some of the comments above is a little unfortunate. You are just making the usual newbie mistakes that almost all of us have made. No big deal. And do not give up on dry camping -- the boondocking near you is world-class.

Third, here is how to avoid the problem of the un-retracted jacks: after we did a similar thing, my wife and I created a "check before towing" checklist of all the things that have to be buttoned down before we actually start rolling. We keep the list in the cab of the truck.

After DW does a final walk-around, we go through the checklist, just like airline pilots do. Yes, it is a bit of overkill. And yes, after 13 years of trailering, we almost never forget a step, so the checklist is usually useless.

But not always. Once in a while, a missed step pops up (like "are the steps retracted??"), and we are glad for our plodding way of getting ready to roll.

Now, on to the batteries. We carry two group 31s, and I never let them get below 12.1 volts. They are carefully maintained on a BatteryMinderPlus, when we are at home. We have a 120 watt portable panel that tops off the battery each day.

With that setup (and careful use), we can go a week at a time without using our generator or plugging in to shore power.

You will gradually learn how to monitor your usage so as to extend the life of the batteries. It is not rocket science -- you don't have to be an expert. (I certainly am not.)

Finally, you need to find out if your fridge is drawing current to stay defrosted. That feature is a battery killer. It may take a while to figure out how to disable that defroster, but it is a job worth doing.

Hang in there! The learning curve for newbie drycampers is steep, but it does level off. And the payoff is huge.

Keep asking questions!! And ignore the replies that are not helpful.

theoldwizard1 wrote:
The most common battery setup for dry camping is two 6V golf cart batteries (Costco or Sams Club). They will last much longer than your one 12V battery.

The OP says he has two Group 24 batteries, each 20 HR rated @ 75 AH, for a total rating of 150 AH for the pair wired in parallel. A pair of 6 volt GC-2s wired in series will typically average about 220 AH @ the same 20 HR rate so yes, while the GC-2s will offer more capacity there's no reason he shouldn't get through two or more days of dry camping with his G24s provided he's cautious about not wasting battery reserve on items he doesn't absolutely need to be running. That fridge climate control heater is one item that should be at the top of his list. ;)