Deep cycle battery for AC?

[KeithF40]

Hello everyone. New to the forums and RV world in general.

I have a 2016 Starcraft AR-ONE MAXX 19 BHLE. I plan on doing a good amount of dry camping but will be turning off the generator at night sometimes.

I want to get a deep cycle battery that is capable of running the AC overnight. I don't mind having to purchase two batteries and running them in parallel if that is what is necessary. Thank you.

[rjstractor]

KM Rolling wrote:

stevemorris wrote:
I highly doubt that your trailer is going to be able to carry the weight of the batteries!

When we are running cross country and end up staying the night where it is hot, we simply start up our $500 inverter generator and run the A/C. It burns less than $5 of gas to run it all night.

^^^ This is probably the only viable way to run AC all night while boondocking. The 12V 100ah batteries are lighter, but if my math is even close you still need 10 of them to run a 13.5K BTU AC all night. A decent inverter generator should be quiet enough so that you would not hear it over the AC.

[KM_Rolling]

stevemorris wrote:
I highly doubt that your trailer is going to be able to carry the weight of the batteries!

When we are running cross country and end up staying the night where it is hot, we simply start up our $500 inverter generator and run the A/C. It burns less than $5 of gas to run it all night.

[librty02]

stevemorris wrote:
I highly doubt that your trailer is going to be able to carry the weight of the batteries!

If he were to go the Lithium route a 100Ah 12V weighs in at only 31 lbs. Your typical group 24 81Ah battery weighs in around 50 lbs.

[stevemorris]

I highly doubt that your trailer is going to be able to carry the weight of the batteries!

[kellem]

I like the way you think but it's just not gonna happen and is my wife's biggest complaint while dry camping,no AC.

Most of the places we camp have hookup but when we do occasionally dry camp we choose our weekends wisely or head for higher elevations.

[librty02]

As stated it can be done but it is costly.

Most are figuring you need so much power to run 8 hours a night 8 continuous hours. If running off genny all day and the trailer is already cool I would say using batteries 8 hours per night the AC would probably cycle on and off all night probably running at 20 minutes per hour on avg.

You could get away with 3 100AH Lithium batteries, a good charge controller and inverter. Solar panels would also help and can be had on the cheap around 100 a piece. The expensive part are the batteries, charge controller, inverter, etc.
Here is a link to a package for example https://battlebornbatteries.com/shop/chickery-travels-300ah-lithium-bundle/
You would also need to add a micro air easy start to the AC for it to ever start off of batteries. This kit with 4 solar panels, a 3000 watt genny to run the ac during the day and charge the batteries at the same time as the solar is helping will be in the $8000 range to have this all done and working properly.

Some people say holy **** that's a ton but if you really love to boondock and that's the primary way you want to camp and you have that investment for 10 years that's only $800 per year over that 10 years. Most spend alot more than that per year on full hook up campsites at moderate resorts per year. Heck you could spent that easily in 1 week per year at a nice resort campground.

It honestly is all in how you want to use your rig.

[msmith1_wa]

There is one other option not mentioned. Stay at a hotel.

[Lwiddis]

Do some basic RV electric online reading that includes a discussion of volts, amp hours, inverters, deep cycle batteries etc.

[time2roll]

Two of these should do the trick:

https://nexgenbattery.com/shop/batteries/48v-300ah/

[CavemanCharlie]

Hopefully it gets cool enough at night that you don't need the AC. You can't run it with batteries.

[CA_Traveler]

A 12A A/C will draw about 130A from a 12V battery. 2 6v deep cycle batteries at 220Ah can supply 130A for 50 minutes to the 50% level. That works out to about 20 6V batteries for 8 hours and about 1,400 lbs.

Run the gen all night.

Or you can set up a 48V lithium battery set which will be less weight and can discharge to 20%. Then run the gen all day to recharge. And the cost will be $$$$$$$, if not more.

[naturist]

What @rjsurfer said.

I came across a youtube video of a guy who set up to do that, but he was running a 5,000 btu, energy star AC, not the 13,500 btu unit on your camper. He did it with 600 watts of solar JUST FOR THE AC, 1100 watts to run everything else he wanted to run, and several Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. Unless you downsize your AC, you are going to need a minimum of 2,000 watts of solar, and a dozen or so of those lithium batteries. Merely buying another flooded cell lead-acid deep cycle battery isn't going to do anything useful for you.

[rjsurfer]

You're talking about a $6,000 plus investment in Lithium batteries, solar panels, inverter, solar charge controllers and a complicated mess of wiring to run an AC for just one night of cooling. And if the sun isn't shining the next day you better have a $2,000 generator to recharge your batteries.

Ron W.

[romore]

You wouldn't be able to carry enough batteries to handle the load.