I’m about 100km east of Thunder Bay and treating myself to a night on full hookups with access to wi-fi and a laundromat. Ah, civilization.
I’ve been boondocking since I left Ottawa on Thursday morning and, let me tell you, that has been full of brutal lessons that left me feeling quite disheartened on Saturday evening, but which were learned well enough to allow for a 180 degree mood shift by the following evening.
The most important of these lessons is: MIRANDA’S BATTERY SENSORS CAN’T BE TRUSTED. The sensors claimed right up to Saturday evening (and beyond) that the battery was operating at full operating capacity. When I finally realised that this wasn’t the case, the battery had reached such a low level that I couldn’t even get the generator going. Saturday evening, I had no lights worth mentioning, no hot water, no refrigerator, nothing. It was very cold and damp in the rig and I was miserable. I went to bed really early, got on the road even earlier the next day, go the battery topped up with the driving, and spent the evening boondocking with the generator running, giving me lights, hot water, a refrigerator, HEAT, and the ability to watch a movie. Lesson learned. If you’re not driving that day, run the generator at least an hour.
The second lesson in electricity is that my inverter is my best friend (even though I called it horrible names on Saturday, poor thing!). It lets me know when battery power is too low to run it. If that’s the case, the generator gets run ASAP.
The third lesson in electricity is that I really hate running the generator. It’s very noisy. But it’s not a gas guzzler and it means I get all the comforts of home. I’ll get used to it.
Saturday night, as I laid there in my bunk, snug and warm thanks to flannel PJs and a feather duvet, I listened to a song on my iPod which really put things into perspective for me. It’s called ‘Painting Pictures of Egypt’ and this is the bit that stuck out:
The place I was wasn’t perfect, but I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey, but then neither is this.
Yeah, I’d rather be in a well-insulated bus with a million solar panels and a satellite dish for getting online, but, at least, I’m not working 8 to 4 at a desk and going home to the ghetto. This isn’t a vacation or a dream. It’s reality. And reality isn’t perfect. But it sure can be great.
The next post will show that I still had my sense of humour come Sunday!
We went through this learning curve as well. You need a battery voltage meter that will tell you when you are at 12.1 “resting” voltage.
The problem is that if you constantly run the batteries lower than 12.1v you will wearb them out very quickly.
You will also learn that running your generator for an hour a day while boondocking will do very little in the way of charging your batteries. This all goes back to that conversation you and I had about your built in battery charger being less than “top quality” equipment. Unless of course it has been upgraded, which I doubt.
But you’re having fun learning. Same as we did. 🙂
Kevin, the inverter tells me if I go lower than 12.1.
I don’t have immense power consumption needs, so between the solar panel and the hour or so of generator running, I was perfectly fine on Sunday, but, of course, I’d done some driving then. I’ll have to see what the numbers are tomorrow after almost no driving.
I’m pretty sure a second battery will be in my near future. 🙂
An hour of driving will charge your battery way more than an hour of running the generator. Of course running the generator also gives you the benefit of an hour of 120v electricity. 🙂
My inverter also tells me the voltage, but I’ve only recently learned that it reads .2 volts too high. So mine’s not very accurate, although yours may be.
Yes, a second battery will make a big difference in how long you can go before having to recharge, although your time for complete recharge will be longer .
Kevin, I just realised that we’re talking about two completely different things! I’m not running the generator to recharge the battery when I’m boondocking but rather running it to prevent the battery from discharging! So, when I’m stopped I only do very light-load stuff like keeping a light on, but if I want to watch a movie or listen to music, I run the generator.
I have no idea if I can trust my solar panel controller or not (I sure hope so), but yesterday and today it told me that my battery was fully charged at the time I stopped driving for the day. Yesterday, I ran the generator in the evening to get onto the computer and to turn on the heat. When I left this morning, the inverter said that it was getting just under the full 12 volts, so I’m assuming that the drop in voltage comes from battery use last night in turning on lights.
I know I need to get the battery water levels checked out, etc., but I still don’t feel ready to absorb that knowledge yet.
If your solar controller is telling you the battery is fully charged and then the battery goes dead with little use then you have either a bad controller or a bad battery. You will need a decent volt meter to determine which. The meter on the inverter is probably not that accurate.
Kevin is correct when he says the generator running the built in battery charger is inefficient. You would be much better off to use your recently purchased battery charger (they’re still on sale) in combination with the generator, and even then it will probably require more than one hour.
I would take the RV to a Canadian Tire store. They will test your RV battery. It should do better than it is doing. When we had a 12 volt battery we used it for several hours of TV viewing after driving and it never went dead (until it failed).
Adding a new additional battery to an older one and especially one of unknown condition is a bad idea. I would suggest getting rid of the old battery and having two six volt golf cart batteries installed in series. This will give you way more capacity than two 12 volt batteries in parallel. I know they are more money than a 12 volt but it will be well worth it for you if you intend to keep traveling the way you are, boondocking often.
Okay, now I feel like a dolt. I thought my battery charger was only good when I’m plugged into the AC. You mean I can use it when I’m running the generator?! Oh boy, there is SO MUCH to learn! LOL
I don’t trust Canadian Tire, so I’ll look up battery specialists in Thunder Bay, or Winnipeg if I find nothing in T.B.
A lot of people have suggested the two golf cart batteries, so that’s definitely an option I’m going to explore.
I’m, of course, still trying to compare the cost of hookups vs. getting properly set up for boondocking.
Thanks to you and Kevin both!
Your generator produces 120 volt AC. When it is running, the plugs in the RV will be “hot” and you can plug in the charger (as well as your toaster or coffee maker).
Don’t worry – like you say, it is a learning curve! You are doing great!
I knew I could plug in the other things, but didn’t realise I could do that with the charger! It’s counter-intuitive, like having to plug my AC cord into the coach in order to get power from the generator!
Someone told me that I should have done more research before leaving. I think that this is the sort of stuff you can’t learn from a book or from talking to people. It’s only as situations come up that explanations make sense. Such as plugging the 30AMP cord into the coach. I was parked the other day running the generator and couldn’t figure out why I my microwave wasn’t working (not that I wanted to use it, but if the display’s on I know I have 120V power). Which is when a discussion on SKPs suddenly made sense and I ran outside to make use of that outlet in the cord compartment.
I love these sorts of situations… except when I’m cold and damp. 🙂
Like they say Rae, “I’ll fall off that bridge when I get to it”.
ROTFL I’m going to have to quote you on that one!!!
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