Think about solar...
After the last dry camping trip I’m starting to think about getting some solar on our trailer. I have two six volt batteries and after running the generator to make sure they’re charged up for about t...
Forum Discussion
allen8106 wrote:
My experience:
We camped in the Arizona desert for two weeks.
We ran the furnace every night.
We ran what ever lights we needed when we needed them. (all non-LED)
My wife ran her CPAP machine all night, every night.
We ran the water pump as needed.
We ran the refrigerator on propane but it does draw a small amount of 12 volt power.
We watched television every night as long as we wanted.
The batteries were usually drawn down to around 70% full by morning.
By 2:00-2:30 pm batteries were back to 100% every day.
Same here, only across the border in Baja Norte and with catalytic heater instead of furnace.
LED lights. These days there isn't much excuse not to convert to LED when they are so cheap and come in all socket types, plug and play.
Battery bank 300AH @12V, a bit more than 2*6V. Bigger bank = shallower cycling.
Batteries were in upper 80-s or low 90-s by the morning (judging by the voltage and AH that they were able to take next day), and back to 100% by 11.30-12.30. It's been a little more than 2 weeks, and during that period I did have a couple of days when it was raining more than 50% of time - then batteries were down to 70-s by the morning and back to 100% by 1 pm.
In absence of furnace my bigger draw was propane fridge, ~12 AH over 24 hours.
Consider that it was winter. In summer the charging would've doubled, but I would not want to be there in summer without grid power.
