Bob,
Sorry for the delay in reply, but we've been out of town for a while.
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Originally Posted by BobRederick
Mike
You have a gorgeous charge meter setup. Thanks for the great photos and inspiration. Can you give us an update on using the Xantrix Link-10? I would be very interested in knowing your user experiences. Someday, I'll probably add an amp-hour meter. So far, we have only dry-camped and I long for an amp-hour meter every day I am out.
* How have you changed your charging technique? You described as 1 hr/day which is just what I do now.
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I went a long trip (about 7 hours driving) with the fridge turned to DC. When I arrived at my site, I checked my AH meter, and discovered that I was down by about 23 AH (about 1/5 of our usable battery capacity). Fortunately, I was heading to a full hookup site, but this concerned me, since most of our camping is no-hookup.
I subsequently measured voltages at the hitch plug, the converter, and at the battery plus current at the battery via the Link-10. I discovered that with the battery fully charged, the fridge on DC, and the TV engine running, I was still pulling about 5 Amps from the trailer battery. As the trailer battery discharged, the portion supplied by the TV increased.
By measuing the voltages at the points described above, I concluded that the problem was electrical (resistance) losses from the TV alternator to the TM battery. The TV wiring is 12-guage (about 15 feet in lenght) and the TM wiring is 10-guage (about 30 feet in lenght for my 2720 with battery on the front). Since you need to count both the source and return lenghts, this gives ~20 feet of 12-guage plus ~60 feet of 10-guage. With carrying the 10 Amps to the fridge, the voltage coming from the TV isn't high enough to overcome resistive losses.
The upshot of all of this was that I decided to install a solar panel system (I have to admit that I was looking at one anyway, since I don't like carrying a generator plus gas in the interior of my SUV (probably would have keep the generator if we had a truck)). Anyway, I've been very pleased with the solar system. I always arrive at a camp site with batteries topped off or close to it. We have gone on two trips (one 3 nights, and the other 5 nights - both with the furnance going at night), and if I get only one panel illuminated for a couple of hours, the panels have provided enough power so that the batteries have not discharged more than 35 AH (I have two Trojan's T-105's with a total of ~225AH).
In fact, if both panels are shaded or in the early morning hours, I get about .6 Amps. Thus, so far, it seems that on a normal day (with at least 8+ hours of sunlight) and shaded panels that I can count on close to 5 AH from my panels. Not enough to replace the power I'm using, but enough to extend the time I can stay.
So far, I haven't had to use a generator and hope to plan to stop traveling with one.
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Originally Posted by BobRederick
* How have you changed your electrical usage?
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I have a maximum usable AH capacity of ~110AH with my batteries (max of 50% discharge). If we are boondocking for 'n' nights, my daily budget is 110AH/n per day. During each day/night in a campground, I monitor what we are using. If I stay under my daily budget (with solar contribution), then I just use what ever power that I want. If I begin to go over, then I start being more miserly with lights and the furnace at night. I love this set-up, I can plan my trip so that I don't run into surprises before the end of the trip.
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Originally Posted by BobRederick
* What other inspirations have you obtained from using this boondocking?
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Besides moving me to install the panels, and my monitoring of extracted battery AH, nothing else. I did replace the two high usage incandescent lights over the sink and oven with two fluorescent lights to reduce power usage and provide more illumination.
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Originally Posted by BobRederick
I have the same goal. You might save me some grief here.
* What did you find for sturdy 12V sockets?
* Where did you mount your sockets and how did you get power to them?
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I used the Andersen power poles as first documented by Caver (
http://www.trailmanorowners.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13694&postcount=7).
I installed them as part of my solar installation. I mounted my solar controlled under the sink next to the fridge (the fresh water tank on a 2720 is installed in the couch in front of the fridge). I then replaced the 10-guage run from the solar controller to the battery with 6-guage wire, this gives me very low voltage drop when charging the battery and plenty of ampacity. As part of this rewiring, I installed a fuse box next to the solar controller. This box has a capacity of 6 fuses, and is connected directly to battery. The TM converter (the original 10-guage), the solar converter and my anderson power poles at connected into this box. I have three power pole outlets connected with individual runs of 10-guage wiring (out and back around the fridge), and each run is currently fused at 20 amps per outlet (The power poles are rated at 30 amps per connector, and I could increase the fusing to 30 Amp if needed). I replaced the telephone plate on my TM (near to the Wineguard TV/12-v outlet) with a modular plate that contains the telephone jack plus the three power pole connectors.
You can make or buy adapaters which go from the power pole connector to a regular 12 volt socket, or you can put power pole connectors on any 12-volt device. I've done a combination of both. Things I plug into my new outlets include: AA/AAA battery chargers, 12-volt cell phone charger, small 150 watt inverter to power my computer, LCD flat screen TV for watching movies at night, a small thermo-electric refridgerator, and a 12-volt hair dryer. I have found the usage to be flexible and easy, and I'm glad that I no longer have to worry about melting the Wineguard socket.
Mike