I am heading to Cades Cove + Campground in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park this summer for 9 days. We love the park and everything around it. The only problem is there are no electrical hook ups at the grounds and generators can only be ran from 8am to 8pm. Power in the evenings will be at a premium. I just replaced 26 incandescent lights with LED bulbs. I was amazed at how long the power lasts. I turned on all 26 lights and left them on all night. I came out of the house at 6am this morning and everything was still on burning bright. my battery meter shows 1/2 charge. I have done some research and found my new LEDs use about 1/32th of an incandescent bulb. The LEDs I bought put off a super clean white light almost as bright as a standard 921 bulb. I put a link to the video I watch about power draw below. I also put a link to where I bought them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66GOVj9lhakhttp://www.amazon.com/Jtech-T10-White-Lights-Bulb/dp/B009DVNHLQ/ref=sr_1_1?m=A12J7DMK6HQWCS&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1398779465&sr=1-1&keywords=Jtech+4x+T10%2FT15+42+SMD+12V+LED+White+LED+Car+Lights+Bulb

So is there a problem, question or concern. Generators from 8 to 8 not my kind of camp ground. I like it quite. And after 8 listen to the radio, read or go to bed, if power is a concern.

The national park also has areas where generators are not allowed.

If you have never dry camped before most stock chargers take 2 days or more to charge batteries, I would bring an automotive battery charger that has at least a 15 amp option to charge each battery. The factory charger might put out about 10 amps. I disconected my factory charger and added a PD9160+wizard 60amp charger and it will charge 2 batteries from almost dead to full from 1 to 2 hours. 2 group 29's. In cold (40's)weather I charge once a day, usuall around dinner, do dishes, shower, run electric heater, since I have extra power to use. We do a couple dry camps a year.I am form Michigan and want to camp there real bad, wife and I got married there 11 years ago and have not been back. On the list of things to do, we actually had a bear walk between us on a bycicle ride and we were about 20 feet apart, talk about a rush. We might take a tent for a couple days and then hit a rent a house for a couple more, hopefully next year.I changed all my lights over to fluorescent tubes befor led's came out, wish I waited, to much into them to change again, they did drop my usage in half though.

Yes. While we are in conserve mode, we use our LED's too. No need for generators here.

2 Decent batteries will last 9 days. On my trips without led lights,my first battery lasted 4 1/2 days. I then switched to 2nd batt and took 1st batt and batt charger to washroom/shower building and pluged it in to charge for 4 hrs, there is usually a 110v plug outside. I also have a solar panel i can put on the roof or where ever it can get sun to help out the batt life. I hate the generators too. My coffe is made with an old style percolator.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park (No Power | Good Sam Community

35 Replies

BubbaChris
Explorer
May 14, 2014
Another option for extending your house batteries is to use something else for illumination.

I'm ordering a Goal Zero Yeti 150 and a pair of their Light-a-Life lanterns. They only draw 3W each.
Rider7767
Explorer
May 14, 2014
goingnorth wrote:

7 days till first trip of the year, Hartwick Pines near Grayling Mi. can't wait. Sites have so many trees you can hardly see next site.

I have spent some time around Grayling, MI. It is a beautiful area. Have fun!
goingnorth
Explorer
May 14, 2014
Rider7767 wrote:
goingnorth wrote:
If you have never dry camped before most stock chargers take 2 days or more to charge batteries, I would bring an automotive battery charger that has at least a 15 amp option to charge each battery. The factory charger might put out about 10 amps.
Thanks for the battery charger ideal. I have a 20amp fast charger at home already.

That should cut charge time in half, stock TT chargers are ment to be pugged in 24-7 while in use. Be sure to unhook stock charger while using fast charger or only plug in fast charger and not the TT.

The first couple times I dry camped I installed blade type disconects to my batteries and would disconect from TT and set up 2 chargers, 1 for each battery and still plug in camper and the TT's charger would run the camper that way I only need 1 to 2 hours to charge up. All my dry camping has been in the fall with temps between 20 and 50F. Running my heater was my biggest battery hog. Never dry camped in a campground, allways been out in the woods as far off road as I could dragg TT.

7 days till first trip of the year, Hartwick Pines near Grayling Mi. can't wait. Sites have so many trees you can hardly see next site.
Rider7767
Explorer
May 02, 2014
MFOX wrote:
The previous owner of our trailer changed the kitchen light to LEDs - can all the lights be changed like that. We are going to dry camp in the summer and I like light. Thank you for the suggestions. Where would I find the lamps to change over them- camping world or does amazon have them??
MFOX, I bought mine at Amazon, but Camper World has them. Here is the link to the company I bought mine from through Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A12J7DMK6HQWCS

There are many brightness level you can get. I recommend you sample a few before you buy the lot. Happy Camping.
Rider7767
Explorer
May 02, 2014
RoyB wrote:
We take alot of photos as well. Got a big surprise one morning at ELKMONT with three or four wild pigs running thru the camp. Rangers said they have quite a few wild pigs there. They keep trying to take them out but keep coming back. Not natural for the area. I didn't like the open area of CADES COVE. Reminded me of a truck stop style of camping haha... Great for doing daily hiking around the cades cove motor trail however... We have got several photos of bear in the Cades Cove motor trail usually around where the old church's are located. The Cades Cove trail sure does gets dark up there around 10PM hehe... If you start out at 4:30PM or so it's usually 10PM when get back around to the start position.

We found solar panels will not work well in the Smoky Mtn National Park. Its like a rain forest cover in the two or three camp sites there.. Especially ELKMONT. We will run our 2KW generator at ELKMONT for three hours each morning starting at 8AM during breakfast. Having solar panel capability is just another source of re-charge power you can incorporate - We would have to have our generator around for those times solar panels don't get high sun to gaurentee our 255AH battery bank starts each day/night run off the batteries being at 90% charge state. Otherwise they won't make it through the night for us and eventually do harm to the batteries if we continue to do use them in that mode. There is a place and time for both battery re-charge systems. In our situation the generator is number one priority and the smaller solar 120WATT panels would be just a gap filler to help out at times. We are just now starting to look at adding three 120WATT solar panels to my POPUP trailer roofline. The MAX DC current I will get during the high sun is around 18AMPS DC for about 5-6 hours. That will be pretty close to re-charging my 255AHs battery banks being discharged down to it 50% level. However my rule will still remain if the 255AH battery bank does not attain at least 90% charge state then I can't use it. My work around for this may be I have to run the generator for a hour or so first to get over the high current demand period for the battery bank and then let the solar panels continue the battery bank re-charge period before the high sun goes away.

These are just my issues - others may have another way of getting around the problem. It seems there is no place for cheating mother nature here however... If you use 300WATTS overnight from the battery bank you have to put it back in within the time you have allowed before you can do it all over again. Of course I could just cut back on using so much DC current from the batteries but I like to do what I do. Flashlights and candles went away a long time ago for us haha...
We pretty much camp at ELKMONT off our battery bank just like we do a regular camp site with electric power with the exception of Air Conditioning.

Roy Ken
The mountains are great and I really enjoyed your post.
Rider7767
Explorer
May 02, 2014
tenbear wrote:
If you want to take the next step to camping without using the genny, look into solar power. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it.
It has been mentioned earlier in the post, but the tree canopy is such, solar panels will be useless.
BurbMan
Explorer II
May 02, 2014
Grab a pair of 6v batteries like these at Costco and wire them in series for 12v. With LED lights and not being at the TT all day they will easily last 9 days. I can get 4 days at the beach playing the radio all day and watching TV in the evening. The #1 thing that kills a battery faster than anything is the furnace. If you don't need heat you are golden.
JiminDenver
Explorer II
May 02, 2014
MFOX wrote:
The previous owner of our trailer changed the kitchen light to LEDs - can all the lights be changed like that. We are going to dry camp in the summer and I like light. Thank you for the suggestions. Where would I find the lamps to change over them- camping world or does amazon have them??

LEDs can be found at Amazon, CW as well as a number of LED sites. The least expensive place is ebay where you may pay less than $2 a unit.

Since you only change out the bulb, not the fixture, you need to pull one and see what kind of base it has. Then find the LED that fits in the right color and brightness. Sounds confusing at first but with a little reading and help from the good people here, you will be lighting your darkest hour with as little power as possible.

This was my conversion thread from a few years ago.
clicky

This is a huge thread with just about anything LED you can imagine.
clicky
Gjac
Explorer III
May 02, 2014
I would think water would be more of an issue than electric for 9 days. I have 2 Sam's club batteries and go 7 days to about 50-60% SOC. Never stayed longer than 7 days in one spot. I have the B&D 40 amp charger that I would run for 2 hrs a day if needed. I would stay at Cades Cove for 5 days then head over the Elkmont(especially if it gets hot) dump and fill on the way and not worry about water or electric. Elkmont is cooler and has a nice cool stream that you can float and swim to further cool you off without running your AC.
MFOX
Explorer
May 02, 2014
The previous owner of our trailer changed the kitchen light to LEDs - can all the lights be changed like that. We are going to dry camp in the summer and I like light. Thank you for the suggestions. Where would I find the lamps to change over them- camping world or does amazon have them??