campervan electric

[campervan]

hi iam planing my campervan out and i have a question my campervan will have a mini fridge, one burner stove, sink, a small bathroom just enough for a small shower and toilet can i run that stuff off a bank of batterys or do i need a generator?

[campervan]

forgot to add i will have solar panels on the roof

[tomesd]

Mine is similar and I haven't needed a generator. If I use the AC I'd need one tho (without shore power anyway).

[Tapatio]

Go solar with a 4D or 8D battery and you'll be fine. You only need a generator if you are running an AC unit.

[campervan]

cool thanks is there a specal battery i should use i was going to use opttima battery is that ok?

[Ford_6L_E350]

You can run that off a pair of Group 24 or 27 batteries with no problem. I'm guessing a 120W or larger solar panel.

Mike

[Tapatio]

cool thanks is there a specal battery i should use i was going to use opttima battery is that ok?

Make sure you buy a deep cycle battery not a starter battery.

Deep cycle batteries are rated in amp-hours (ah). For example a 100 ah battery will provide 1 amp over 100 hours, 2 amps over 50 hours, 4 amps over 25 hours etc. The bigger the battery the longer you can run devices. The bigger the solar panel the faster it will recharge the battery(s).

For comparison purposes I have a 4D (200 ah) aux battery. Here is what I estimated the daily draw (24 hours) to be for my electrical systems.

                               ah             Number of hours   Total amps used
Refrig. 3E - 2.7CF             2.5                  16                40 
LED lights                      .3                   5                 1.5 
Espar D5                       3.0                   2                 6 
Water pump                     4.0                   1                 4 
CO2/CO detector                 .1                  24                 2.4 
Blue-Sky controller             .017                24                  .4 
Stereo                         7                     3                21
Total                                                                 75.3

[Skywagon]

Keeping in mind all the while that you don't want to run the battery completely down to 0%.
In reality, the 100 amp battery might actually only deliver 40 or 50 amps until want to re-charge it.
Bill

[campervan]

thanks all this info is helping me out alot!!!!!!