Dry camping. We finally have the system down!

[davidaf]

Thought i'd share since I'm pretty happy we are finally able to dry camp again. We dry camp in our Lance all the time but the big dog has been stuck with hookups for a long time now. To make a long story short we spent over a year bouncing between parks trying to shed ourselves of temporary house guests (1 of 2 20 something girls at a time). Dry camping with them was a disaster. I thought the next generation was supposed to be environmentally sensitive, not these girls.

The biggest challenge was electricity since we are full-time and like to live and work in our home not just camp outside. Took us about 3 days to get things wired. First two nights we woke with a little over 50% battery now we are waking with 75%+ so we could probably refine the system a bit. It's been in the high 40s low 50s at night w/ the furnace set to 65. Water usage is 6 days on a full tank with daily showers. We are getting about 6 days out of each propane tank.

We have 4 6 volts w/ 680w of solar and two Yamaha 2000s. Lights are all LED. "Whole house" inverter/charger is a Magnum 2012. The generators are usually run from 7p to 8p to get a final charge on the batteries (which we could probably do w/o since batteries are at 90-95% when I start the generators) and when the wife wants to run the beauty products or use the Microwave for longer than a minute or two. A manual drip coffee pot was a key purchase. Just heat the water and dump it over the grounds. The Keurig is in hibernation.

I installed surge protectors (for the on off button) on pretty much everything that we use except the microwave. Whatever isn't in use is switched off. Biggest pain with this was dish network having to re-find the satellites with the automatic dish. Finding out I could push cancel on the "downloading programing guide" shaved 10min off that wait.

Magnum Inverter/Charger is set to 30amp shore power with charger capped at 40% which keeps the generators on their low setting to keep the noise down. We started turning the Inverter off at night which actually saved a bunch of electricity.

I'm pretty happy with the system/setup and no longer stressed about electricity. More import DW is happy. I call this a success and look forward to more time away from the RV parks.

[Drifty1]

We have 6- 6 volt AGM batterys and seem to get along a little better with that configuration. The wife is able to use her hairdryer and I am able to run 3 cups of coffee thru the single cup Keurg without to much trouble,but we do watch the charge control panel often. When we have someone else borrowing power from us dry camping I will shut the inverter off at night to save power.. Of course the other trailer can not be to much of a power hog or I will pull the plug on them... The last time we did this we shared power for more then a week.. It feels good to know you do not need hookups all the time.. So congrats on your system and pray for sun....

[DQDick]

Sounds like you've got it under control. Enjoy the dry camping experience!

[rames14]

Keep us posted. We just purchased a new 3160 and had a Xantrex 2000 watt inverter added. We only have it wired in the lower living area (2 circuits) for coffee and TV.

[davidaf]

The whole house inverter has been great! The Magnum 2012b has two internal breakers/circuits which we had wired into two small sub-panels. This allows us to use all outlets besides AC, W/D and Water Heater. Originally we fed two circuits directly off the Inverter but we wanted to use any outlet. It was cheaper to have some wiring done than eat the cost of the Inverter and buy a new one.

[Mudchief]

You were right to do the sub-panels. I did not do that the first time around and it cost me a inverter.

[Bigboomer]

Nice set up....X2 on the sub panels....Very easy to isolate the must haves and the well if we need it now circuits plus protecting the investment.

Since you are now in the boondocking world you are all set for next years Circling of the Montana's in Quartzsite!

Good luck and safe travels,

Les

[WaltBennett]

We've 4 6v T-105's with 400 watts of solar and the batteries charge all the way in one day when down to 80% on the Trimetric with no problem. The BIG problem we've run into has been the 85+ degree heat and needing to run a generator for AC almost 3/4 of the day when not hooked to shore power. In KY now and heading NW in a week, but it looks like we'll be at CGs all the way to Northern CA. Maybe it'll get cooler on the way back . . . .

[DQDick]

Had ours rigged so we can run everything on Solar except the AC, Frig and water heater so that when we are in a park and paying for electricity we can run those on shore power and run the rest on solar saving a little on the bill.

[WaltBennett]

quote:Originally posted by DQDick

Had ours rigged so we can run everything on Solar except the AC, Frig and water heater so that when we are in a park and paying for electricity we can run those on shore power and run the rest on solar saving a little on the bill.

That's how ours pretty much is as well, but we've only stayed at one park that charged for elect. and it was such a low rate, I didn't care.

I'm thinking about removing the gang bar from the two AC breakers though, so I can have our generator running one bus and not have AC going to the inverter. That way it won't try charging the batteries and just do it's inverter thing when that's all I want it to do. Any downside to that?

[Drifty1]

I removed the gang bar on the 2 main breakers. This works great as we have everything in the trailer feed from the 30 amp side thru the 3012 Magnum and the 20 amp feeds the single ac unit.. Very simple.... One thing on my list to change is to install a 12 volt outlet for charging our phones. After that install I can shut down my inverter at night and still charge my phones off the batterys..

[rames14]

Don't you have a 12v outlet on your TV booster for the antenna?