what do we need? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Kelly · RV-Dreams Family Member

what do we need?

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

There's no reason to believe that you can't run anything and everything you like while dry camping, however you will need to equip your coach to do so. Yes, your computer will run on its battery but only for an hour or 2 and then no more until it can be recharged.
You are going to need an inverter!! That means that you are going to need more house batteries and either a generator to recharge those or solar to keep you powered up.
You can buy a small inverter (500-700 watt) or two to power up the item you like or you can look into a larger whole coach inverter (2000+ watt) that could be installed along with the new battery bank.
There is no way to know how long you can camp without knowing more about your current batteries and how many things you want to power including the lights and fridge (yes, it draws power even when on propane). The Hughes modem uses about 30 watts when active and 20 watts when idle. A satellite TV receiver draws about 25 watts. Your TV may or may not draw a large load but the bigger it is the more it draws and the big ones are killers!
It may be easier/cheaper to buy a small Honda generator (1000 or 2000 watt) if you are only going to camp now and then but if you plan to do this often then investing in the right dry camping equipment will make life a lot easier.

blijil · RV-Dreams Family Member

Yes, you can do all of the above for 2-3 hours a day with some planning when dry camping 5 days and even longer. Some people really enjoy dry camping and really love their TV and Internet fix. Therefore they are much more willing to spend $ to have the capability. Our system is pretty modest compared to many however it is not the minimum and we have done well with less for many weeks at a time.

First you need the battery capacity to handle your use requirements for at least a couple of days. If you don't do microwave and other big inverter requirements a couple of 200 amp hour deep cycle batteries will get you started with a 400 - 600 watt inverter. This will give you about 100 amp hours to use before recharging. This can be done repeatedly without degrading your batteries with a little monthly maintenance to keep the water level up. The problem is how do you put the 100 amp hours back in the battery. Lead acid batteries have a recommended charge rate of about 10% of their amp hour rating. So the most you can put back into two batteries is 20 amp hours per hour each which would take at best 2 1/2 hours of charging to put 100 amp hours back into your battery. If you use a generator and a good 3 stage charger you can get moving in the right direction but there is a catch.

As your batteries charge the charge rate slows. You don't want to let the battery get below 65% of charge or the life of the battery is seriously reduced. So in reality it takes several hours to totally charge the battery back to full because by the time it reaches 90% full it will only charge at 5 amps or even less. If you force it by raising the charge voltage you just boil off your battery water at a faster rate and this requires more diligent maintenance and could cause other problems. So what can you do to solve the problem?

You can add battery capacity and operate them between 65% and 90% charge for a couple of weeks at a time which will degrade the battery life some but nothing like letting the charge get below 65%. We went to 4 200 amp hour batteries and operated this way for two summers with good results using a Honda 1000 to charge for about 3-4 hours a day. The cost was wear and tear on the generator and about .35 gallons of gas a day and the noise which is minimal with the Honda but not with other generators.

You can add solar panels which are expensive and would pay back in about two years of continuous dry camping (not likely for most). We added 200 watts of solar to charge the battery which works well but you can't park in the shade and in the winter your charge rate degrades significantly and then there are those pesky clouds. Again there is the need for the little generator. However the addition of the solar allows us to fully charge our batteries often because they are being charged at a slower rate over the daylight hours. This is good for your batteries.

We dry camped for weeks last spring using only the solar in the desert southwest in the sunshine and often were fully charged by one or two pm. We camped in the mountains in the summer tall pines and all however we did choose sites with at least 5 hours of sun and didn't use the generator 90% of the time. This fall we camped in the tall pines for several weeks and we had to use the generator more because the angle of the sun on the sites in the fall decrease the solar exposure through the trees. Just too much shade. So on rainy days we ran the generator for two hours in the morning and hoped for some solar boost. If we didn't get it we ran the generator another hour or so in the evening. Depending on your location you might do your TV watching or internet accessing during generator hours and reduce the load on your batteries. In the fall with the tall pines we picked up about 30-50 amp hours of charge distributed over the day so we routinely ran the generator 1 1/2 to 2 hours during the morning before the solar was charging much. (We often watch GMA during this time on TV.)

Is it easy to keep your technology and dry camp? No way. Is it worth it? It is worth the effort to us in quality and quantity of hours away from road traffic and pavement. There are people in this and other forums who have spent $5000 and more to get the dry camping capability they need. We have about $2500 invested and we have a moderate system. Others have added a battery or two and a small inverter to get a couple of days of dry camping in now and then. But with a small generator added it doesn't take long to spend $1000.

There are many sites and discussions addressing this subject in detail but we thought you might like to get a general idea of how it works for us.

Happy dry camping,
Larry and Jacki

Kelly · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill, Larry and Jacki, Thank you so much for the very helpful responses. Much appreciated.
We have 2 coach batteries and a built in generator. You mentioned a " 3 stage charger" Is that something most coaces come with?
Also, we do not have room to add 2 more batteries where the existing ones are located ( under the steps) How close do they have to be to each other?
We just accomplished another learning curve with the purchase of the tripod / sat. system. We have set it up twice now on our own successfully !!
Where do you have the inverter installed ? inside or basement?
Thanks again,
Kelly

blijil · RV-Dreams Family Member

Two batteries will work if charged every day. Hopefully you have two golf cart batteries wired in series to give you 12 VDC and true deep cycle capability. However even two 12 VDC marine/RV will give you 200 amp hours total capacilty. That means that you can only spend 80-90 amp hours before charging. Most RV's do not come with a 3 stage charger and do not have the "bulk" charge stage. This means that your generator will probably only charge at about 20 amps maximum and it tapers off as the charge improves. That means more than 4 hours of charging with just two lead acid batteries. Your RV generator will do the job but not very efficiently because most are gas/propane hogs so they can run your microwave and even your Air Conditioner. So count on use about 1/4 to 1/2 gallon per hour of fuel. There are some other battery solutions which are more expensive but charge faster. I expect those with that kind of experience will step in.

You can improve your situation by using your equipment while the generator is running and thus reduce the charging requirements while charging. This is a cost effective trade with the larger generator packages but makes things a bit inconvenient for you. Especially if your habits and generator hours don't match up.

Good luck,
Larry and Jacki