Little boondocking setup help?

How long do you want to boondock? With those batteries, you are good for about a week, even without a generator!

If you do bring a generator, there is no wiring involved. You plug your RV power cord into the outlet on the generator. Or are you talking about an on-board hard wired generator??

It depends on your battery draw. During the summer in higher elevations, I could go for a week just off a single battery. Nothing in my camper uses battery unless I turn it on. The Norcold 300 doesn't use any battery in LP mode either. Since I don't have a TV or radio, my only draw is the fan and lights, which are minimally used.

My recommendation would be to add a good battery monitor such as a Trimetric 2025. This will allow you to figure out your battery consumption which is needed to decide on how much capacity you need.

Just adding batteries or solar without knowing your consumption is like putting the cart before the horse. And just running a generator is almost as bad since you don't really know if you need to run it or not.

For hooking up your generator, just get a plug adapter and plug the camper into the generator. Recommend at least the Honda 2000 so you have enough power at higher elevations.

How much battery bank you need is highly dependant on your trailers parasitic loads and your use of electrical power. Generally speaking though a twin six volt battery (about 220AH of storage) and a generator to recharge can boondock for as long as you want until you run out of fuel. To minimize generator run time make sure you a have good 3 stage converter or upgrade to one. With a good converter I would recommend the Honda 2k versus the 1k for the $200 difference in price as a good converter might overload a Honda 1k and the 2k would allow for microwave use if wanted

An example of trailer parasitic loads useing my current FW:
- With just the battery connected, no fridge or HW heater turn on it draws 0.5 amps contineously or about 12AH per day
- With the Fridge and HW heater on using propane that parasitic draw averages 1 amp or about 24AH per day. This is with no lights and each standard 12volt light bulb draws an additional 1 amp each.

My setup for Football weekend tailgating without electrically hookups is twin 6volt batteries, 265watt solar,all LED lighting, and a 300Watt PSW inverter for running the TV, Laptops, and phone chargers. If I don't need AirCond this setup will run long weekends using multiple TVs as much as I want and don't run out of power not using the Generator. I run out of water and gray tank capacity first on a 3 night weekend

One thing that I found running just a grp 27 and my simple solar set up is that with just a few hours of sun in the morning the battery was fully charged at nightfall. We don't have big inverters, multiple TVs or coffee makers (that we use), so the voltage drop by the time the system started charging again the next morning was so little that the battery was in float very quickly. Once in float the panel covered any loads I put on it during the day even if I turned everything I had on including the furnace.

Generators are instant gratification, start it up, plug it in and go. Should you need AC, the microwave or other large 120v items, they are a nessesity. Smaller items can be run off of a smaller inverter and your two 6v batts.

Solar depends on your needs and if you camp in a area with good sun. This is sunny Colorado and I notice you are in Washington. That could be a issue as when we were in Seattle a few months ago, I barely remember seeing the sun. lol
In any event know that you could put together a simple solar system like our 230w system for around $400 if it would work for you vs twice that for the Honda. Instant gratification vs silence.

Battery FAQ
This tutorial may be of some help. 12v side of life.

Inverters are nice to have;
Don Rowe site Inverter FAQ
Inverters by Phred

we camp 70 % without hookups , often with other camper friends.
we do not have a generator or solar .
our extended group does not allow generators .
we have been doing this for 15 years .
we use a set of 12 foot Heavy Duty jumper cables .
after setting up our trailer we turn our diesel pickup around and run off of 4 batteries total .
the pickup gets driven every second or 3rd day .
those 2 batteries get fully charged .
immediately upon returning i use the jumpers to connect the 4 batteries again.
the 4 batteries tend to equalize .
i do not run the pickup in an attempt to recharge the RV batteries anymore .
the electronic controller of the refer is the item most critical for voltage .
if the refer warning light goes off then you need a charge .
that does not happen using the 4 battery method .
we conserve our furnace usage and take advantage of the factory supplied 12V flourexcent lights in our Komfort trailer .
we charge the RV batteries fully at home for the day prior to camping .
i always disconnect the RV batteries for storage after our camping trip .
my RV batteries are old but have held up very well because i have neither overcharged them nor have i let them stay " flat " for very much time .
i upgraded my duramax to AGM batteries Exide EDGE .
if i find a deal on some AGM batteries for my RV i will upgrade them also .
save your money . buy 12 foot HD jumpers and maybe some upgraded batteries .
get some LED lights .
to help conserve juice we use the LED headband lights in the campground , a propane lantern in the colder nights to take the chill off the trailer when turning in and on very rare occasion our mr. buddy propane heater .
you can buy a lot of AA batteries , and propane bottles for the price of a solar panel .

Lowsuv, if you get a low voltage warning on the fridge, does that mean the batteries are below 12.1 volts? I have been told that letting them go below 12.1 shortens their life -- I don't know if that is true, but I follow that rule.

Lowsuv wrote:

to help conserve juice we use the LED headband lights in the campground , a propane lantern in the colder nights to take the chill off the trailer when turning in and on very rare occasion our mr. buddy propane heater .
you can buy a lot of AA batteries , and propane bottles for the price of a solar panel .

You are right, $400 will buy a lot of batteries and propane. The difference is the level of comfort. The one thing I know is the more comfy honey is, the more often we go.

For 25 years we have roughed it and used many of the tricks you suggest including the jumper cables. Even our first trip boondocking with this trailer we did it. It was stock so no LEDs, generator or solar, we made a grp 27 last 3 days. When it was cold during the day (40*) we wore coats and even hats. When it dipped to the 20s at night we set the stat at it's lowest point just to keep us and the dogs from freezing. The lantern trick worked a lot better in the 13 ft trailer than the 25 ft.
Battery operated LED and florescent lights kept us from tripping over our black dogs but still it was pretty dim. After 3 days we decided to extend the trip and that's when I started using the jumper cables.
We had fun but Honey decided it was time to put the cover on and get going in the spring next year when it warmed up.

The next year we got the generator and LEDs. The generator was better than running the truck but we knew as soon as it shut off the ticker was running on the single Grp 27, so we still conserved.

This last trip with the solar, we camped like pigs. It was a cool and rainy trip so the stat was set on 72 day and night. We didn't turn on a few LEDs just to get around, we lit the trailer from end to end. In fact between the furnace, fans, lights and a small inverter something was always running.

In the end the best part wasn't that I never had to worry about the battery or listen to the generator charge it up every day, it was Honey saying we need to go out every other week. That's worth every penny spent.

Jim, the solar took care of all of your needs, even in rainy weather?? That's impressive! What sort of panels and controller are you using, and are they roof-mounted? Thanks in advance for the answers.

Our panel is a SchottPoly 230w, the controller is a Eco-worthy 20a MPPT controller with two 25ft cords. SolarBlvd.com sells similar panels for around $150 plus shipping ($60 to Denver), the controller is $100 shipped and the cords are $32 shipped. If ever needed I have a 220w panel that I can get going for the $132 the controller and wires cost.

I am still testing but eventually want to mount one or both. Right now I have the 230w portable and I start tracking the sun in the morning. We get a lot of sun in the early morning and storms by noon, luckily it doesn't take much to replace what we use over night. Once the battery is in float, it stays there all day.