How long can I boondock without solar or genny?

[camperAL]

Hi mdprowash and all,

Getting a gasoline generator was my thought as well. I'd look into a quiet unit so you don't disturb others. Selecting places where you are more or less a lone (or several thousand feet away from neighbors) and operating your gen set when it is later in the morning. Also shutting down before it gets too late.

As was considerately mentioned to me in another boondocking post, part of the enjoyment of boondocking in some places is the natural quiet and being under the stars at night without blinding lights.

I posted on our first boondocking experience here: http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,120239.0.html

Might be some items that could come in helpful. Have fun!

 

[Oldgator73]

I have a 75 watt HF solar system. It?s quite heavy and cumbersome to tote around. Having said that I used it at Shenandoah National Park and it kept our battery charged for the 5 days we were there. You have to run the fridge off gas or your battery won?t last but a few hours. Just our personal preference but at 45-55 at night we wouldn?t run any heat. Great sleeping weather.   
Water and sewer are of more concern to me when boondocking. Luckily at Shenandoah we?re directly across from the bathhouse so it worked out fine.

 

[Dragginourbedaround]

I have a 75 watt HF solar system. It?s quite heavy and cumbersome to tote around. Having said that I used it at Shenandoah National Park and it kept our battery charged for the 5 days we were there. You have to run the fridge off gas or your battery won?t last but a few hours. Just our personal preference but at 45-55 at night we wouldn?t run any heat. Great sleeping weather.   
Water and sewer are of more concern to me when boondocking. Luckily at Shenandoah we?re directly across from the bathhouse so it worked out fine.

We have a 100 watt portable solar suitcase and two Group 31 batteries. Boondocking we run everything on propane and it takes our 5k generator about an hour and a half morning and evening to charge them. We could probably run the generator less, but we like to watch TV in the evening. We?ve gone 15 days on solar with good sun. We were at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta so we had a water truck deliver water and a honey wagon to cart it away.

Shenandoah NP is one of my favorite parks. Did a lot of hiking and backpacking there. Camped at Mathews Arm and Big Meadows.

 

[mdprowash]

Thanks for all the awesome feedback..

I ended up picking up a Honda 2000 generator in like new condition (only 5 hours)!

Question... when I need to recharge my batteries... do I connect my camper's 30amp cord with adapter to the generator or connect gen straight to the batteries? And... if straight to batteries... do I charge the two 6 volts as a group or individually?

 

[Lou Schneider]

Congratulations!  Plug the trailer into the generator and let the converter charge the batteries.  The 12 volt charging cord is low capacity (10 amps) and is really only good for rescuing a vehicle with a low starting battery and no access to a better charger.

If you ever do use an external charger, charge the two 6 volt batteries as a pair, because they became a single 12 volt battery when you connected them together.

 

[mdprowash]

Congratulations!  Plug the trailer into the generator and let the converter charge the batteries.  The 12 volt charging cord is low capacity (10 amps) and is really only good for rescuing a vehicle with a low starting battery and no access to a better charger.

If you ever do use an external charger, charge the two 6 volt batteries as a pair, because they became a single 12 volt battery when you connected them together.

Good to know... thanks a million!

 

[Mark_K5LXP]

Going below 50% will kill batteries.

To place an arbitrary limit on a consumable like a battery is like saying never drive above 35mph or you'll wear your tires out faster, or never put your awning out between 10AM and 2PM or the sun will wreck it.  What are you saving them for?  Point being, *any* use, including non-use, batteries will expire.  When it comes down to whether I serve my batteries or my batteries serve me, I know how that will turn out.  The only always/never to observe is to always charge when you can, and never go below 10.5V when discharging.  If you actually manage to wear out a set of batteries by discharging them, congratulations.  Because not unlike RV tires, more often than not batteries age out or are damaged before they wear out.

My comment about the "buddy" heaters is it takes a lot of BTU to actually heat an RV comfortably.  Just as an experiment I have a 1lb bottle model of heater and I put it in my 30' class A when it was 50F inside.  I let it run for 3 hours and the temperature inside had risen only 5 degrees.  No question the larger models would do a better job but not only is there the issue of oxygen depletion but there's also moisture generation from combustion.  You have to keep windows cracked when using heaters like these to allow fresh air in and moist air out, somewhat defeating the purpose.  Add in they're a red-hot ignition source and I'm not crazy about running something like that when I sleep.  I'm a big fan of them when out camping to take the chill off in the morning but they're not a substitute for the forced air furnace in an RV. 

As far as that goes, doing my own wintertime driveway testing I can comfortably go for 2 days including heat on a pair of GC-2's.  The thing about storage is no matter how much you have, you have to fill it back up eventually, somehow.  So just adding more batteries to extend run time works to a point but filling those back up has to be considered too.  Coming up with the balance of not having/not using energy demanding devices vs generation capacity is the challenge, from there you spec your storage capacity to match.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[rbertalotto]

Folks did it for about 60,000 years.....

 

[UTTransplant]

To place an arbitrary limit on a consumable like a battery is like saying never drive above 35mph or you'll wear your tires out faster, or never put your awning out between 10AM and 2PM or the sun will wreck it.  What are you saving them for?  Point being, *any* use, including non-use, batteries will expire.  When it comes down to whether I serve my batteries or my batteries serve me, I know how that will turn out.  The only always/never to observe is to always charge when you can, and never go below 10.5V when discharging.  If you actually manage to wear out a set of batteries by discharging them, congratulations.  Because not unlike RV tires, more often than not batteries age out or are damaged before they wear out.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

The difference with batteries is that discharging them too low results in an increased chemical reaction that truly does shorten their lifespan. I know people who blow through batteries in 2 years - they just don?t have enough amp hours available anymore. I also know people who maintain their batteries carefully and keep the same set (while dry camping extensively) for 6-7 years. What the cost/benefit trade off is for an specific individual probably depends more on how often they do it. We dry camp for weeks at a time, generally 3-4 months total a year (about half of our rig time). Someone who does it for 6 weekends a year probably won?t see any perceptible change.

 

[Scott 3]

I tested our first TT a couple of times with a similar scenario.  Our TT had a cheap 12v battery.  It got us through 2 nights.  The weekend we ran the furnace drained the battery by Sunday morning (2nd morning).  You should be able to go a little bit longer with 6v batteries.  Don't expect your vehicle to recharge the batteries if you bottom out

 

[Oldgator73]

Folks did it for about 60,000 years.....

I often think back to when we tent camped (from 1973-1998). We had no electric, water or sewer and we were perfectly fine with that. Now we go camping and seem to need a site with full hookups. It?s really not camping anymore. I guess we can call it RVing, but camping, no.

 

[ChasA]

I used to camp cowboy-style, on the ground, with a rolled-up blanket for a pillow, and laying next to the fire. One morning I woke up to find a copperhead sharing the fire's warmth.

 

[UTTransplant]

I often think back to when we tent camped (from 1973-1998). We had no electric, water or sewer and we were perfectly fine with that. Now we go camping and seem to need a site with full hookups. It?s really not camping anymore. I guess we can call it RVing, but camping, no.

As I got older the ground got harder. Last time I went tent camping was 2 years ago on a Green River (Utah) canoe trip. Loved it, would go again, but man oh man is it hard to unpack all the gear, set it up, and then pack it all up again the next morning after a day paddling the river. I must admit the views were not ones I could get from my RV, but I still am in the RV 6-7 months a year, and on the river a week every few years. Too much work for these old bones to do often.