Interesting results of power use audit when dry camping.

[John___Angela]

So we have been dry camping for about a week in fairly lousy and cold weather (read below freezing every night. So as we have to be here for a few more days I decided to see what sucks the most power on a daily basis in these kind of conditions. eg stuck inside most of the day, TV on all day, Computer on all day and of course 2 X furnace loads, cell charging, residential fridge, microwave, toaster, beverage water heater, lights (mostly LED) etc etc. (Man we are power hogs) Using the Samlex remote watt usage meter and a clamp on ammeter I figured out the following.

Surprizing the biggest sucker upper of power is the 32 inch Vizio TV. Draws between 90 and 105 watts and its on of course all day. Next is the computer I am typing on, (ASUS all in one with about 20 inch screen). It is a close second at around 70-80 watts and of course its on all day as well. Third was the residential 22 cubic foot fridge which also draws around 100 watts but is on about 20 minutes per hour (but all day and night of course). After that the cooking appliances etc draw big current but for a short time so after a little calculation I'll put the two furnaces next. After that its all little stuff.

Anyway, today we have sun so the solar system is cracking out 25 -30 amps so genny run time is minimal. (Hour in the morning at breakfast and the same at supper}. Other wise it has been more than double that run time on the cloudy (and colder) days.

And this is what you do when you are bored and waiting to go south. 🙂 (as soon as we get a couple of minor business things sorted out)

[DryCamper11]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Interesting observation...
If a person goes without television (sports are OK) for a year, then resumes watching TV, chances are they will find it degrading and offensive. A waste of time. I wonder why that is...?

When we are on vacation, we tend to go to sleep at or shortly after sundown, unless we are reading. At home, we watch a fair amount, but only recorded programs (no commercials), of shows we like. We carry plenty of recorded movies and shows to watch on vacation, but for some reason, we never seem to get around to watching anything, even though it would be easy. It's like we are living another life while in the RV, and TV just doesn't seem to have a place. Nor do we use the computer for much - again, it's just not part of our RV life. Even the phone gets disabled. We do miss being able to look up some things - info about wildlife, maps, etc.,on the smartphone, but not so much that we want to give up our remote campsite that lacks cell service.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Interesting observation...
If a person goes without television (sports are OK) for a year, then resumes watching TV, chances are they will find it degrading and offensive. A waste of time. I wonder why that is...?

[John___Angela]

I blame Angela and that durn Keurig. coffee maker. :). Course it does make awesome coffee though. :). When dry camping with my brother they sometimes bring their Kuerig over and plug it Into the outside plug so as not to run the generator in early morning hours. It's all good. Good coffee puts everyone in a good mood. 🙂

[mena661]

Almot wrote:
Cutting down consumption in half still seems possible,

Forget that! Let those other people do with less. Use your RV the way you see fit. I sure as hell do.

[Almot]

John & Angela wrote:
Told ya we are powerhogs. 🙂

At least, you are honest about it :)...

Yeah, for an RV your battery bank is huge, and solar too. Cutting down consumption in half still seems possible, people fulltime with 1/3 of your daily draw. LED lights help very little, it's other things that you can save on.

[NinerBikes]

double post

[NinerBikes]

tpi wrote:
I've posted it before-my year old 13" Macbook Air w/ solid state drive draws about 8-20 watts depending on what it is doing. Generally about 10 watts for web browsing. The tablets use even less. If you use computers a lot while dry camping, check into the latest solid state drive computers w/ LED screens.

My Samsung Google Chromebook is similar in draw. chrome://system/ will give you the answer once in it, go to "power supply draw" while unplugged.

[tpi]

I've posted it before-my year old 13" Macbook Air w/ solid state drive draws about 8-20 watts depending on what it is doing. Generally about 10 watts for web browsing. The tablets use even less. If you use computers a lot while dry camping, check into the latest solid state drive computers w/ LED screens.

[mena661]

Bill.Satellite wrote:

There may be some issues with these numbers. Your front TV is drawing 741 watts and your front entertainment center nearly caps out your 15amp breaker drawing 1632 watts?

Just saw this. These numbers are amps DC at the batteries. Edited my post to show that.

[John___Angela]

ericsmith32 wrote:
If no one has mentioned it turn down or off the back light on the Vizio. All of our flat screens have this setting. Not sure what it would do for power consumption though.

Hmmm. I'll look into that.

Re our solar, we have about 800 watts, flat mounted over the crown of the roof, 4 X 125 watt and 4 X 75 watt, plus or minus, all going through a blue sky controller (SB50) controller. I check them once a year on June 21'st (plus or minus) at the same latitude and longitude at 1300 hours. Eight years ago we got about 33 amps and we got almost the same this year. Probably not the most scientific way to do it but if it drops off significantly one year I'll go hunting for a weak panel or bad connection. The batterie bank is 8 X 6 volt batteries. Told ya we are powerhogs. 🙂

[ericsmith32]

If no one has mentioned it turn down or off the back light on the Vizio. All of our flat screens have this setting. Not sure what it would do for power consumption though.

[Almot]

BFL13 wrote:
What you need for long term boondocking, is some solar and some gen/charger, so you don't have to reduce your chosen lifestyle rain or shine.

They have "some solar", and quite a lot of it, judging by the amps that it puts out. But with what they want to do - and they way how they do it - they have to run a genny every day or almost every day, there is no way to avoid this. Increasing the battery bank would help to reduce the genny time, since it sounds like their solar can keep up on a sunny day but there is no SOC margin for rainy days.

[qtla9111]

For cable and news we use the internet via ustvnow.com Works for us when we have a connection. We also download things to watch on the road so we are never without.

We just started solar this year so thanks John and Angela for starting the thread. Still lots to learn but we are enjoying it.

[NinerBikes]

John & Angela wrote:

Almot wrote:
Your rig is not optimized for boondocking. And so is lifestyle - this is individual, but there are things that you just can't do in the boons without either a good solar or substantial genset run.

Big rig, two furnaces - both can be replaced with cat heaters. Older inefficient TV, and many hours. PC instead of a laptop, and again many hours, and this is simultaneously with TV because you're a student and your partner has to kill the time somehow. Huge - by boondock standards - 120V fridge, you think it's drawing 80W @30% cycle, but there is a high startup current. And microwave, and toaster, and all this with inverter losses.

Yepir. There are so many things we could change not to mention how we do things but we are full timers and this is our home so we lean towards the comfort side rather than the power conservation side. Overtime it will get better as we replace the TV's. This year we went with all warm white LED's which I'm sure helped somewhat. It would be hard to give up the big fridge. We still love to dry camp and do a fair amount of it depending on the year. When the weather is sunny we are stand alone and need no generator run time but any shade and the genny is coming on for an hour or two per day. Really not to bad in the big scheme of things.

Good points... solar when it's there, when it's not there, the genny is plan B.

[BFL13]

What you need for long term boondocking, is some solar and some gen/charger, so you don't have to reduce your chosen lifestyle rain or shine.

And that lifestyle can be as lavish as you like!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHKCPorcBvk