Battery and Solar woes

Qwazert wrote:
I guess we all have a different idea as to what constitutes "camping"...to me, it has always been about minimising. The "hard-sided tent" affords us a dry place to sleep and store our gear, that's all...otherwise I would have bought a 30 ft with 2 slides and parked it at a KOA. Our next trip is for 12 days in the BC Interior with no hookups.
Our trailer is a 2016, so it already has LED interior lighting. The tap-lights are just a courtesy so that you don't wake the other person, when making a trip to the loo in the middle of the night.

This morning I checked the SG on the Shumacher-charged battery; 1.277....right where it should be, and the OCV is 6.5 after letting it sit overnight.
The NOCO-charged battery still needs some lovin' as expected...she'll go on the Shumacher until her readings jive with the other...then they're back into the RV and we'll call the rescue mission a success.
Next challenge is figuring what to do....use our second existing solar panel, or buy another flexi-type...

Nothing wrong with "minimizing" but you could have bought a cargo trailer far, far cheaper, tossed a couple of cots in it and called it good which is as minimal as you can get without a tent. On top of that would not needed solar and batteries. That is essentially what you are using the more expensive RV as.

If your RV has electric available while at home, plug it into shore power and the converter would have done the charging work for you. Even the WFCO converter you have would have eventually recharged both batteries and eventually they would equalize together. The key with WFCO is you need to remove every parasitic draw. Those draws are enough to prevent the WFCO from switching modes. A simple bit of rewiring to allow a switch to disconnect the loads via your fuse panel.

Getting a battery from 90% to 100% charged takes considerable amount of time at very low charging rates and that can be shortened if you have a larger charger which is capable of sustaining a higher output voltage and amperage. Those little portable things cannot sustain a high enough voltage and amperage compared to the battery size. Those chargers are designed for small car and lawnmower batteries (40Ahr or less).

The larger capacity of the battery, higher the charging current will be needed.

While a 100W (5A worth of charge) panel may have marginally worked for say a group 24 or Group 27 battery (60Ahr and 70Ahr respectively) it isn't enough for a 215Ahr battery as your T105s.

One of the main keys to keeping your battery happy and healthy is to put back as much of the energy used as fast as possible. Each time you draw the battery down some, that needs to be put back in as soon as possible.