battery discharge

4 days on 2 batteries is doing pretty good. You may wan't to look into solar panels or a small generator to supplement you energy needs.

2 batteries is kind of a broad statement. What type? 6V, 12V? What size? Group 24, 27, 31?

How are you on power management? Lights left on unnecessarily? Multiple lights on when one will do? Water heater turned on only prior to need? Fans left on unnecessarily?

There are ways to better manage your power needs & make battery banks last longer.

If your unit doesn't have LED's in the light fixtures, installing them would help.

I agree about managing your power consumption better, including LED lights, which is a huge power saver.

However, you are ruining your batteries by going 4 days without recharging. The secret to battery life is not running them down repeatedly. I could go 4 days without charging, but I would never do that, because I want my batteries to have a long healthy life. So I charge every day, starting on the first day.

I too camp alot off the power grid and currently have 255AHs of battery capacity which runs all the 120VAC things we want to use from an Inverter and the 12VDC items direct connected to the battery. With what we are running our battery bank discharges down to around 12.0VDC (Approximately 50% state of charge) by 8AM the next morning. This is when we want to re-charge the batteries back up to their 90% charge state in as little as three hours time using smart mode charging technology with the trailer shore power cable directly connected to the 2KW Honda generator 120VAC receptacle using a RV30A-15A long adapter from WALMART.

Camping here on the East side of the US it seems most of the camp grounds have generator run time restrictions so the three run time fits most of the allowed times.

We can do this 50% to 90% battery bank charge cycle for a good two weeks time without doing damage to our battery bank at which time we must re-charge the battery bank to its full 100% charge state. Not doing this after the 14 days or so will start doing damage to our battery bank...

Just passing on how we manage our batteries when camping off the power grid...

It does take some planning and beefing up to be successful.

Roy Ken

In conserve mode, we use approximately 25Ah per 24 hours. With our 220ah battery setup, we feel comfortable drawing the batteries down to 50% in 4 or 5 days.

gskellenger wrote:
we bought new Rockwood 30 ft. fiver with diamond pkg.
we do mostly primative camping and can't get
the dual batteries to last more than 4 days
if fridge is on (gas). Anyone have idea's , is
this normal ???????

More details on the batteries would be very helpful. Harbor Freight has a 3-panel, 45-watt solar charger for $150, on sale with a coupon. It will give you an extra day or two but that's about it. A better system will give you nearly infinite power, but cost is 5-6 times more. Rationing power and changing to LEDs will help the most.

Lyle

the simple cure is Heavy Duty Jumper Cables 12 feet long
since 1995 we have done a 9 day campout with our camping circle of friends off the grid .
we park the trailer , turn the pickup around and run from 4 batteries
the pickup gets driven every 2nd or 3rd day .
when we return we hook up all 4 batteries with the jumpers .
we do not run the engine to try to bring the RV batteries up .
the 4 batteries equalize via the HD jumpers .
we do charge up our batteries on 120V at home before and after each trip , while packing / unpacking .
we do not own solar or a genny .
nor do our friends .
quiet in the campground is very nice .

Thanks everyone for the advice. Let me clarify the problem we
are having. I have 2 12V deep cycle batteries wired in
parallel. Lights are all LED. I have generator but prefer
quiet campgrounds as much as possible. I understand that
discharging below 50% will in time damage the batteries so
we have always practiced conservative electrical habits.
I am testing the system at home comparing draw to my old
camper so I know what to expect out on the road.
The batteries discharge in 3 1/2 to 4 days without ever
turning on a light or any other power requirement except
the gas refrigerator which has a periodic fan to cool the
burner unit. This seems excessive to me and I wonder if
I may need to chase some kind of short or is fridge fan
causing all the draw ???
Note ; I pulled the fuses to the stereo and TV during
this test to eliminate those circuits.

You certainly do have a problem. You have "leakage" or a load some where. I would disconnect one of the leads from the battery bank and check current flow with an ammeter. I don't know what the amp/hour rating for your batteries might be. Let us say you have two 50 amp/hour batteries, that would give you 100 amp/hours. If you are pulling a tenth of an amp (100 ma.) you should have 1,000 hours of service, if my math is correct.

That being said, there is also an internal "discharge" that can and does happen. I have found that the older the batteries the greater the internal discharge.

I believe that, since you have new batteries, that you probably have a current draw somewhere in your fiver.