First Dry Camping Experience

[oyarsa]

I thought I posted this, but it hasn't shown up, so we'll try again. Sorry if it's a duplicate...

We had our first dry camping experience. It was nice, but could have been a lot better and now I have some questions.

First, I thought we had an inverter. I don't know why I thought that, except that I have never seen a 12-volt outlet in the trailer, only AC outlets. How would I know if the trailer has an inverter that might not be working correctly?

Second, I thought the batteries should last longer. We only used the battery to run 1 light during the day (we were in the forest). Despite that, after a few hours, the monitor (that shows gauges for battery, fresh water, etc) showed 2/3. By the next evening it was teetering between 2/3 and 1/3. We decided not to risk overusing the battery and came home. Shouldn't the batteries last longer than 24 hours if all you're using is a single light?

Third, when we were leaving, I was in a bit of a hurry. I failed to realize that I had the stabilizer jacks still down as I jacked the trailer up to get above the hitch. I don't see any damage to the jacks. Any chance I did any damage to the frame or anything, or do the jacks just retract if enough pressure is applied to force them to retract?

[BubbaChris]

We very regularly dry camp for 3 nights at a time with 2 typical 12V batteries on our rig. This includes running the furnace at night and in the mornings (down to the 40's overnight). The water pump gets normal use, including 4 showers.

The only time we had big issues was when one battery cell went bad and we truly *needed* to run our genny during the day to get us through to the next morning.

With the year of your TT, I suspect you have LED bulbs. If not, make that change. Also I have lights in my basement that can be accidentally tripped, and that would increase my battery drain (and not be noticed for hours/days). I've also accidentally left my porch light on by mistake.

Good luck on the troubleshooting, it's worth it to get the bugs worked out.

[poriggity]

While we don't currently have a TT, as we are not picking it up until later this month, I feel I can offer some suggestions on keeping your battery charged. I currently run a 2004 dodge 2500 with a roof top tent setup. I have a dedicated 12V plug ran to the bed of my truck to power my ARB fridge freezer, and all we do is boondock camping. In order to stop the fridge from draining my batteries on the truck, I invested a couple hundred bucks in a 100W solar folding "suitcase". The panel unfolds and uses alligator clips to connect to my auxillary battery, which is the battery that the plug for the fridge is wired to. Works great for boondocking. The only issue I have with it is you do have to move the panel a few times a day in order to get the best sunlight to it, in order to get the best charge. That being said, once we get our TT, we will be carrying the solar panel with us for boondocking, for sure.



Scott

[profdant139]

Huntingdog, you are so right --silence and privacy are the greatest luxuries of all.

[Huntindog]

rbpru wrote:
That is forgoing some of the creature comforts.

Not in my world.
You would be amazed at how we live while boondocking.
That is probably why we never tire of the trip.
Many after a few days get restless an =d want to go back to civilization. We dread it.

[SoundGuy]

profdant139 wrote:
kirkl, I don't know anything about 6 volt batteries (other than the fact that some of the most knowledgeable RVers have them). Does it hurt them to get down below a half charge, the way it does for an ordinary 12 volt??

Nothing wrong with a pair of 6 volt GC-2s for a trailer, 20 HR rated on average for about 220 AH but reality is a lot of those who run them do so because they've been told it's "better" but really have no idea why. :R The fact is a pair of 12 volt G31s wired in parallel will also be 20 HR rated about the same. Some would argue the 12 volts aren't "true" deep cycle batteries but at some point that's more semantics than anything else as to what "deep cycle" really means, especially to the average user, not the purist. East Penn is the largest US manufacturer of batteries and makes a fine series of DEKA "deep cycle" batteries in both 6 volt and 12 volt variations which will work just fine in an RV application. I've got a G31 AGM variation myself, if I were much more of a dry camper I'd have two but as it is I can still run my 1000 watt PSW inverter with this battery as long as I'm reasonable about it. Regardless of what battery you're running, the less it's depleted the longer it will last - 50% depletion (about 12.1 volts) has always been the de facto recommended maximum depletion you should regularly run the battery down to. Infrequent depletion deeper than that is OK but you don't want to do it on a regular basis and you do want to recharge the battery as soon as is practical - i.e. don't let it sit like that for a week. :E 6 volt or 12 volt - it's your choice, each has it's advantages but also it's disadvantages.

[kirkl]

profdant139 wrote:
kirkl, I don't know anything about 6 volt batteries (other than the fact that some of the most knowledgeable RVers have them). Does it hurt them to get down below a half charge, the way it does for an ordinary 12 volt??

Ya know, im not sure, ive ran 6 volts for along time and usually dont get them down to 1/3 but the few times I have i have never had an issue with the batteries lasting for years.

[profdant139]

kirkl, I don't know anything about 6 volt batteries (other than the fact that some of the most knowledgeable RVers have them). Does it hurt them to get down below a half charge, the way it does for an ordinary 12 volt??

[boosTT]

I'd guess either your batteries were not fully charged or they are damaged. It is possible that your converter over charged the batteries at some point and damaged them.

LED bulbs are a quick, cheap and easy way to save power. And you don't need to try and conserve light as much.

[kirkl]

I have 2 6 volt batteries and we just dry camped for 5 days and we ran lights, fridge, water pump, radio alot and 12 volt TV and I only ran my generator once for about 2 hours to give them a little charge, we were down to 1/3 on day we left but they worked great. When my batteries are at full they go to 2/3 pretty quick but they stay at 2/3 for days.

[profdant139]

SoundGuy, that was interesting. It turns out that this phenomenon is related to (but not quite the same as) "surface charge."

Paraphrasing the stuff I read, it seems that letting the battery rest before taking a reading is a means of compensating for "surface discharge." The surfaces of the plates get drawn down during use, but the interior of the plates don't always get discharged to the same extent.

So by letting the battery recover before taking a reading, we are allowing the plates to re-establish a uniform charge (uniform between the surface and the interior of the plates). This gives us a more accurate reading of the true state of charge than a quick reading based on the voltage during active usage.

This is important to boondockers and dry campers, because (as I can tell you from personal experience) I sometimes get pretty low momentary readings on the voltage -- if I am running the inverter and the furnace and the pump and the lights, I have seen 11.9 on the voltmeter.

If that were really the true voltage of the battery, it would be below 50 percent state of charge -- not good.

But then when I turn off all those systems and wait 15 minutes, I often get a reading of 12.4 or so. No problem!! And no need to run the generator, at least not quite yet.

[rbpru]

I key point is if you want to boondock on a regular basis, it helps to gear up for it. "Gearing up" also includes more of a camping mindset. That is forgoing some of the creature comforts.

[SoundGuy]

profdant139 wrote:
By the way, could someone tell me WHY the battery gives a different reading after it rests?

Google battery surface charge and you'll find enough to keep you reading for weeks. 😉

[profdant139]

And note that a battery with 110 amp hours (like my group 31s) can really only deliver about 55 amp hours before dropping to 12.1 V. I am told that if you routinely go below that level, it can damage the battery.

That's why I use one battery for a few days and then switch over to my spare. Often, I don't even have to switch the batteries because the 120 W solar panel tops it off every day. But if it doesn't, that's okay – I've got the spare. So I keep fairly careful track of the voltage.

I should also add one more thing about checking the voltage – let the battery "rest" for a while before testing the voltage. There is some disagreement on how long it has to rest. I let it rest for about 20 min.

If you measure it while it's under load (or right afterwards), you'll get an artificially low reading. After it rests, the voltage reading rebounds to its true level.

By the way, could someone tell me WHY the battery gives a different reading after it rests? I know it is true, but I don't know enough about batteries to say how come this happens. Thanks in advance. (And no, I am not really hijacking the thread -- this is directly relevant to the OP's topic, right??)

[rbpru]

The only 12 volt outlet in our TT is at the antenna amplifier.

We get about two days of toilet flushing/hand washing water and lights with our single 12 volt battery. If I need a third day I will use a set of jumpers from the truck and charge the TT battery for about 15 minutes of so.

In answer to the OP question, many TTs just have a 100 amp-hour battery. An incandescent bulb can draw about an amp. I measure my phantom loads at 1/3 amp. (with the TV antenna amp off.) So just having one lamp on, my battery would last 3 days. From that you subtract water pump time for flushes, washing, cooking and coffee making and two days is about right for us.

Recently we replaced our lights with LEDs but we also have multiple lights on. So, in reality if you want to spend more than a day or so boondocking you have to be set up for it or do without.

We seldom boondock, so 2 days serves us well. If you like to boondock there are a lot of folks on this board that can help.