power usage ???????

peter and rose · Veteran Member

power usage ???????

Firefly · Guru

We have a dual battery system in our car.

Number one battery runs the car.

Number two 160 amp hr gel battery runs all camp accessories ie: fridges in the car and trickles to the van when in tow, charging the 100 amp hr gel battery in the van.

You will by the sounds, need an alternate power sorce to be on the safe side.

We purchased a stand alone 120 watt solar panel for our next trip as we found the above insufficient for free camping for extended days.

Also we carry a genny, which is great, but the solar panels in the heat, will pay for themselves in no time and the genny will be the back up.

The sun is free, the genny takes fuel. We have two gennys, our advice here is buy it once, buy a Honda. We have the Honda 2kva, quiter and suits all our needs.

Hope this helps, others will list what they prefer as well so your choices will be many.

peter and rose · Veteran Member

thanks firefly you have given me a fair bit to think about but have cleared the grey matter which should help

Smokeydk · Guru

Peter.......seems your covered......maybe as FF said a 120 watt solar panel..........I have a 80watt one I place on ground.its not fixed to the van roof as some......cause I like to park in shade

"I also have a sca 1900amp jump start for emergencies."..........I have 2 for the same reason

I have a 100amphour Deep cycle battery too......will get a bigger one soon.......but I only run a waeco 40lt ...and lights ....no TV...

last trip 4 days....I didnt use my solar panel.....still had power

NeilandRaine · Guru

One big power user when free camping is the water pump, if you have an electric one.
Fold up 120 solar panels are popular and good these days and a stand by Genny is good to have, a Honda 1 KVA is the go, reliable and quiet. Wish I had one of them.
If the budget will allow it LED lights can save heaps of battery life. Normal van lights are hard on battery.
We dont suffer for the sake of saving power, we have 2 100amp hr batteries in the van, with the 12volt tele, lights, water pump, laptops we run from a cheap Dick Smith invertor with a surge protector and a weaco we can easily get 3 days out of batteries. However, to be on the safe side I put the genny on for a few hours every morning, about 10 am not to upset anyone.

Gary and Kerry · Guru

see link below for working out power requirements

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=51933&p=3&topicID=41270331

Ron and Shirley · Senior Member

Peter and Rose

You say you run your 3-way fridge off your van battery for approximately 3-4 hours whilst travelling. These fridges are very 12v power hungry. You would be better off power wise just to turn the fridge off for those 3 to 4 hours and conserve your 12v. The internal temperature of the fridge will not vary much if left shut for that length of time. We use to do it for around 6 hours when we had our Campertrailer and never had any fridge contents spoil.

If camping for 3 days, and using gas for your van fridge, I would think that your proposed usage for lights, TV, Engel, maybe water pump(?) could be close to the edge with your 100A/H battery, ie using 50% of capacity, and you would be wise to top up your battery by some means to prolong battery life.

We are from the Solar Panel school, however more often than not we see generators being set up as soon as vans pull into the Camps Book sites and sadly they are running well into the night.