PinkLeopard
South Lake Tahoe
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We have a 4 year old 35' southwind with the original batteries (2 deep cycle 6 volt). We've been doing a bunch of boondocking and the batteries don't seem to be holding their charge very long. We are going to replace the batteries with new ones a retailer says will last 12 years. We have 3 laptops & 3 phone chargers & a mifi. Are 2 batteries enough? Or do we really need to go to 4?
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vermilye
Oswego, NY, USA
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Although the phone chargers & MiFi are not heavy draws, some laptops can hit your batteries pretty hard. My 17" draws 9 amps @ 12v - three of those running a couple of hours per day would add up...
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PinkLeopard
South Lake Tahoe
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we draw about 8-9 amps total
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pianotuna
Regina, SK, Canada
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Hi Pink,
8 amps for 24 hours is 192 amp-hours. Since batteries last better if they are not taken below 50% state of charge, that implies a battery bank of about 386 amp-hours. That means going with four batteries.
Can you tell us more about these "12 year" batteries?
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PinkLeopard
South Lake Tahoe
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pianotuna wrote:Hi Pink,
8 amps for 24 hours is 192 amp-hours. Since batteries last better if they are not taken below 50% state of charge, that implies a battery bank of about 386 amp-hours. That means going with four batteries.
Can you tell us more about these "12 year" batteries?
Thanks - we don't need 24 hours, though, so for 1/2 that it sounds as if we might be ok with 2 batteries...
12 year is what was quoted to us by the store, but he may not understand about full-timers and working in your rig.
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bluwtr49
Green Valley, AZ
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I'll bet you have a lot more draw than you think. Use a clamp on ampmeter and see what you're really using.
IMHO, 2 batteries is simply not enough for boondocking of any length.
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pianotuna
Regina, SK, Canada
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Hi Pink,
Your choice of course--but I'd maximize battery storage if I planned to full time and boondock. A few folks here have battery banks of 1000 amp-hours.
I'd also be adding solar.
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PinkLeopard
South Lake Tahoe
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bluwtr49 wrote:I'll bet you have a lot more draw than you think. Use a clamp on ampmeter and see what you're really using.
IMHO, 2 batteries is simply not enough for boondocking of any length.
Well we have a monitor and that's what it said we were pulling...don't know how else to monitor it. We had no problem last year when we spent a month in Quartzite running all the same equipment, but our converter went bad and we may have damaged the batteries, plus from what everyone says 4 year old batteries are old
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pianotuna
Regina, SK, Canada
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Hi,
The batteries in my previous RV are 10 years old and still meeting the needs of the new owner. But the unit is not used for full time. It does have a modest solar system.
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korbe
Northern California
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I enjoy boondocking and have 2 six volt Trojan batteries.
I placed a volt meter at the batteries, hooked it up to show amps, and determined the amp draw from each of my 12 volt power draws.
I was then able to determine how long I could dry camp using my 2 batteries. BTW, we have been able to dry camp between 5 and 7 days drawing our batteries down to 50%.
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