Non electric campsites

[mrsrutter]

We have a 2018 3350 Cardinal 5th wheel. Can anyone tell me how long the battery will provide electricity for the camper when detached from the truck? Wondering how to deal with non electric sites. Thank you in advance.

Judy

[jtaylor1920]

Hi Judy,

How many batteries do you have and do you have the residential refrigerator?

[Don Wilson]

John's question about the type of refrigerator makes a difference on how long the batteries will last.
The RV gas/electric refrigerator uses much less battery because it only requires a quick burst of power to light the unit and then it operates on propane.
The residential refrigerator operates using an inverter and operates entirely off of the battery/s when not plugged in to electricity. Other factors are how much you use lights and run the water pump. If you have two batteries it will last longer than if you only have one.

Don

[Big Bird]

The quick answer is not long enough

[djousma]

John's question about the type of refrigerator makes a difference on how long the batteries will last.
The RV gas/electric refrigerator uses much less battery because it only requires a quick burst of power to light the unit and then it operates on propane.
The residential refrigerator operates using an inverter and operates entirely off of the battery/s when not plugged in to electricity. Other factors are how much you use lights and run the water pump. If you have two batteries it will last longer than if you only have one.

Don

Mostly True. The control board in a gas/electric fridge requires 12V all the time to operate, and some also have a 12V switchable moisture control that operates a heater to control frost in the doors. If on battery, make sure you have this switched off. Its a real battery killer.

If solar is too much to handle, then a small 2000W inverter generator should do most everything you want, except run the A/C, and keep the batteries topped up for overnight.

time of year is a biggie too. Furnace blower requires a lot of power to operate as well.

[Anton & Sandy Jones]

I am no expert, but I do have some experience to draw on. We went from a 1996 28' Class C with one 12V group 24 house battery and a generator. We went into full timing last year with a 2015 3875FB Cardinal.

We added a 1,000 Watt inverter in the motorhome. It was good for 2 to 3 hours of TV watching on the inverter. On colder nights with temps dropping into the low 40's or 30's the furnace blower would kill the battery overnight. We added a propane heater to prevent that. We fed the hose through a window to ventilate.

Fast forwarding to our Cardinal. I added 400 W of solar flat on the roof and four 6V Costco golf cart batteries to the 2 group 24 12V deep cycles that the dealer installed as well as a 2,000 watt inverter. We also installed a 7,350 W generator in the bed of the pickup with an additional shore power cord to feed the Cardinal. When we are not plugged in and not running the generator, the inverter runs everything except the air conditioners and the fireplace.

I did not, and still have not done in an in depth analysis of what that bought me for boondocking length. Our most extensive boondocking experience so far consisted of 6 consecutive nights camping not being plugged in after the Cardinal was left for 3 weeks not plugged in with everything off that we could turn off except the refrigerator. We drove 3 hours after night one from Phoenix to Algodones, Mexico(Quechan casino to be precise) then after 2 nights there to Quartzite (about 2 hours) for 3 more nights. We lived like we were plugged in using the inverter 24/7. It sucked the batteries down at the end of the 4th night. My measured "resting" voltage on the bank was 11.9. The recharge from driving and then running the generator did not charge it back up very fast. One night of being plugged in to shore power did charge the bank all the way up. FYI: This was early January which limited my solar generation to about 6 "good" hours per day and 2 of the days were cloudy which limited the solar generation more.

The problem with this is that if I kill that bank many times, I'll shorten the life of my battery bank considerably. So, in the future, I will endeavor to never run the bank below 12.4 volts measured when the bank has "rested". With our old motorhome I "murdered" the house battery every 2 years because of the consistently deep discharge that I subjected it to. With close to $1,000 spent on this battery bank,I want to keep them alive as long as possible. FYI: Refrigerator in our Cardinal is dual gas / electric.

I am also considering adding more solar, a bigger controller and a Bogart Industries Trimetric battery monitor that should give me the percentage of amp hours that I have remaining in my bank to our Cardinal.

I think that one of things that "got me" when I did that deep discharge was leaving the inverter on 24/7. That allowed for a much higher discharge than necessary because of all the things that were sucking juice to be on standby (primarily both TV's) come to mind.

To summarize, I would recommend that you see how many amp hours your battery bank has, and how much power everything uses. Try to never draw your bank much below the 65% level (12.32V when the bank has rested). For figuring purposes Volts x Amps = Watts. Your algebra 1 will get you where you need to go from there. Last thought for the day: Bob Wells at his cheaprvliving.com website and you tube channel gives a great primer for all this.

Hopefully, this dissertation did not discourage you. Again, I am no expert, but I am trying to learn. Good Luck and Happy Boondocking!