Its my first time going to an unpowered campsite and just using my van battery for power for 3 nights . Will be using my cook top stove and frig on gas settings obviously but I would like to know how long my van battery will last when using other appliances
Ill be using the water pump and lights and charging my mobile phones
I dont think there is tv reception however will that draw much power?
How long does it take to run out of power if just using lights, water pump and charging a phone?
How can you monitor usage? I have a monitor on my New Age 16.5 Mantaray 2015 model
Ron, you have posed a how long is a piece of string question. The capacity of your power supply depends on size, quantity and configuration of battery/s. Do you have solar charging? _ if so power output would need to be provided. The brochures for all you appliances will note their power requirements, this needs to be put into the equation, are your lights LED or incadescent globes?
If you are running a single battery using incadescent lights and non LED TV - you would be lucky to get one night of power.
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Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
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As noted by Possum, it is widely variable depending on what you have. But I took a stab as a starting point. You will need to modify the figures according to what you have.
TV uses a lot of power, comparatively. Lights (if they are LED) use very little, and because your pump is only used intermittently, that will be fine as well.
Assuming you have a typical AGM battery of about 100 amp hour capacity in good condition, you can work it out roughly as follows:
Aim not to discharge the battery by more than 50%. Going below that once or twice will not kill it, but doing so reduces its life just a little each time. So you have 50 amp hours (AH) you can use.
If you have 2 LED lights on, they probably consume somewhat less than 1 amp, especially if they are not very bright. So, assume 4 hours per night x 3 nights = 12 AH. A typical water pump may consume about 4 amps, but as it only runs for a short time, say 30 minutes total = 2 AH. Phone charging probably about .5 amps x say 4 hours = 2 AH.
A recent 24 inch LED TV might use 4 amps, so you could watch a little, but you can see it will quickly chew through your allowance. Older TVS typically consume quite a bit more.
Of course these are only rough estimates, and your equipment may have quite different consumption rates. If you have incandescent lights rather than LED, they consume about 10 times as much, so that would be a killer well before 3 days.
If you installed a couple of solar panels they would keep up with your demand if it is sunny.
For monitoring, I dont have one. But how about this cheap one. It will show you your instant usage, as well as accumulated. There are other similar ones around.
I have 100 Ah battery and run a water pump and LED lights
We do not use a TV but do charge 2 phones and an iPad several times. I have no problems getting 4 nights plus out of the battery. We carry a solar panel and I do use a generator for the 800W microwave.
I have seen people run their generator to watch tv .
When I camp 5 days plus the solar panel is used to keep the battery topped up but only after about day 3
I have 100 Ah battery and run a water pump and LED lights
We do not use a TV but do charge 2 phones and an iPad several times. I have no problems getting 4 nights plus out of the battery. We carry a solar panel and I do use a generator for the 800W microwave.
I have seen people run their generator to watch tv .
When I camp 5 days plus the solar panel is used to keep the battery topped up but only after about day 3
I'd suggest that your battery, unless fairly new, is likely to have a usable capacity way below what you would expect from a standard 100Ah battery
So, only way to check is to run typical lighting for a few hours and keep an eye on the battery voltage.
We have 104AH & 120 watts of super efficient solar which the batteries will suck up the 9amps or more. Fridge uses up to 15AH per 24hours. The only thing we would need to charge up is the phone. So 4 days without having to drag out the solar panels.
Calculate loads for each products rating would be a good start.
You could just run everything & collect data until the battery goes flat. It won't hurt it once. Charge it up with your solar or car straight away. Then halve that time for future capacity.
One way or another you do need to measure things until you have a gut feel for your typical usage & your charging capacity while camping. It's not difficult.
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Thank you each and everyone for your advice
It is much appreciated
I believe Ive got sufficient info now to manage and will take your advice
All the best
Thanks again for your quick response
Regards
Ron
Hi all; We have 440 Ah of AGM batteries and 240 Watts of solar, for backup also have a 30 Amp smart charger that is connected into the 240 volt wiring in the caravan and this is only used when there is not enough solar to bring your batteries backup to full charge . I agree with what other members have said and remember that a agm battery can only be discharged to around 50% of its capacity.
Hi all; We have 440 Ah of AGM batteries and 240 Watts of solar, for backup also have a 30 Amp smart charger that is connected into the 240 volt wiring in the caravan and this is only used when there is not enough solar to bring your batteries backup to full charge . I agree with what other members have said and remember that a agm battery can only be discharged to around 50% of its capacity. With our setup or caravan has led lighting, led television and satellite television, water pump, diesel heater and a must down in tassie. Charging of phones and running 2 x 40 ltr Engel fridges can also be done. Management of the voltage , current and battery capacity is also a must, If things start to go pear shape, that is when the generator and smart charger come into use ( daylight hours only ). Cooking and hot water is by gas. The biggest problem for us any way is the amount of water one goes through and showers are taken very quickly. Chasing water and also emptying the toilet cassette are also 'fun things to do while free camping'.
Thank you each and everyone for your advice It is much appreciated I believe I've got sufficient info now to manage and will take your advice All the best Thanks again for your quick response Regards Ron
Hi Ron
I think you will be OK. But what I feel is important to say, for your peace of mind at least, is to be able to monitor the battery state of charge. While a fancy amp/hr meter is best, you can get by quite well, in your simple situation of low current users, with a volt meter and a bit of experience and common sense. What does the van have for a monitor ?
You do need to appreciate that the voltage drops just because it is being used, and will rise again to its standing voltage, when the load stops. If you get the feel of what happens there you can get a good feel for the battery condition. A solar panel will cause a rise also when charging but it drops when that stops. It all makes sense after a while if you are a bit savvey.
Dear all,
Further to my lack of supplying enough detail for proper analysis
I have just a single battery in the van
I have led lights
I have a Drifter display which tells me the charge state,
volts and amps - on power at site now for 3 days and reading 0.0 amps and 13.3 volts
I dont have solar
My van is religiously serviced
Hope this adds some clarity
Thanks again
Regards
Ron
From what Ive understood I believe
if I use power carefully I should be fine for 3 nights
I guess you can start the cars engine for short time to recoup some charge ? About 1500 rpm is enough to get decent charge with 100 amp or so alternator.
Ronzo wrote:How long does it take to run out of power if just using lights, water pump and charging a phone?
How can you monitor usage? I have a monitor on my New Age 16.5 Mantaray 2015 model
Ron, You did not specify what the monitor in your Mantaray is. Is it just a voltmeter type or does it a SOC (state of Charge) reading? If you can give us a make and model number then we can advise how you can use the monitor.
There are some pretty wild assertions given above like incandescent lights use 10 times as much as LED lights. The old stoplight globes and the halogen lights used in the early Jayco vans were around 22 W. That meant that they used less than 2 A of current. The 2D fluorescent with a 16 W tube used around 1 A of current and the LED lights in my current van use a little less.. The van with the 2D tubes did not have solar as I was only staying a few days off power.
When carrying a 35 litre Waeco fridge I could safely get 2 nights off power (that was without TV as those of power sites were out of TV range.) You should easily get 3 nights off power if you only use 2 or 3 hours of TV a night. If you come back with the details of your monitor then we can give you info about using it (there are too many variations in battery monitors for us to instruct you with the scant details you have given.)
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PeterD Nissan Navara D23 diesel auto, Spaceland pop-top Retired radio and electronics technician. NSW Central Coast.
