DRY CAMPING BATTERY LIFE

[jayrock]

Good Day, planning a big trip to the Jasper and Banff national parks in Alberta Canada this summer. Have a full service site for 4 nights so no worries, but have a basic site for two nights, meaning no services. SO the question is will the battery last for the two days, just running lights and the water pump when we are at the trailer. OR should I get a small solar panel or can I charge the battery off my TV.

Any help suggestions answers would be great.

Oh I am towing a 2011 Visa 19RSD with a 2012 Ford Explorer.

CHeers
Jason

[atreis]

So long as you don't need the furnace, two nights should be fine with some basic conservation (don't leave lights on when you don't really need them).

[jayrock]

I was also thinking of a small solar panel just to help keep the battery charged. Any ideas, or is this just a waste of money.

[atreis]

Solar panels CAN help a lot. I have 320 watts of solar on my roof (configured into two 24V arrays with an MPPT charge controller) because we do extensive several-week-long trips to places without hookups where we will also need to be able to run the furnace. That's pretty extreme though. On my old trailer I had a single 115W panel - that worked pretty well for keeping the battery charged most of the time (except for deeply shady sites) so long as we didn't use the furnace. Anything less than 50 watts isn't going to do much for you.

[jayrock]

good to know about the size. I am going to look around the next couple weeks and see what I can find for a good price.
It is for two nights, but I would hate to run out of power.

[sam75]

We have a Visa 19ERD, and we dry camp 95% of the time.
We regularly get 5 full days of life on our Walmart 29DC battery but only run our refrig, lights, stove fan and bath fan (limit these to 15 min a day each), our cell phone chargers, and of course the LP/CO alarm. I even avoid using the water pump (we have a water dispenser in both the kitchen and bathroom instead), but I suspect the water pump wouldn't impact our battery life much since we take our showers at a nearby campground. We have replaced all light bulbs with LED and we usually run the dinette, one of the ceiling, and bedroom lights 3-4 hours each night.
If we need a heater, we bring the Mr. Heater Big Buddy - 2 propane bottles more than last the night during our coldest camps.
We bring a Sony battery powered boombox which fits in one of the over-bed cabinets - just prop open the cabinet door and it sounds great.
Someday I will probably get a solar panel up on the roof (45W min, 80W would be perfect) so I can run the water heater and furnace and TV and run all the lights/fans we want, but we don't really feel a driving need for that as long as we can get our showers elsewhere, and we really like the silent operation of the Big Buddy, and fasting from the TV for a few days is kinda nice too....

[amblttow]

Good Day, planning a big trip to the Jasper and Banff national parks in Alberta Canada this summer. Have a full service site for 4 nights so no worries, but have a basic site for two nights, meaning no services. SO the question is will the battery last for the two days, just running lights and the water pump when we are at the trailer. OR should I get a small solar panel or can I charge the battery off my TV.

Any help suggestions answers would be great.

Oh I am towing a 2011 Visa 19RSD with a 2012 Ford Explorer.

CHeers
Jason

If battery is in good condition and fully charged, you should be ok with very conservative use, especially if you change your most used lights to LED.
We hope you have a good time in our beautiful province of Alberta.

Proud Canadian

[jayrock]

The trip was last summer, and the basic camping running off battery and a small solar charger was fantastic for a couple nights. Loved Jasper

[amblttow]

Right, I forgot the post was older. Glad you enjoyed the trip. I've been to Banff many times, but not Jasper. We hope to travel to Whitehorse next summer and may get to Jasper either on the way out or back.

What trailer do you have, and what do you tow with?. Just curious how you handled the mountains. We have a Visa 19 RGU and a Ford F150 w/5l V8, so I think we'll be ok. It handled the grades up to 17% last July in the Gaspé penninsula.

Cheers

[jayrock]

We have a 2012 Visa 19RSD, and we toy it with a 2012 ford explorer.

It was fine the whole trip. Just never over loaded the trailer and it was good. A couple slow up hills, but nothing major.

[amblttow]

We found the Visa too low so we added a 3" lift kit. Now we don't scrape the stabilizers at gas stations etc. Have you had any problems?

[jayrock]

we had run in to a few problems the first summer we had it with it being to low, and scrapping things like speed bumbs, or sometimes camp sites if to steep a grade. I ordered a lift kit as well, it was well worth the money. took my father and law the day to put it all on and squared up, and grey water re plumbed. but it was worth the effort, as we have not bottomed out at all. Just bought a little stool, and bring some blocks for under the stabilizer jacks as they work better if I do not have to extend them all the way.