Charging my new 2024 2720 Sport battery when stored

[Rebound123]

Thanks for your kudos.
Your best choices for 'adding electrical power' will vary, according to these 3 issues:

#1, how many hours or days you need to last with no plugins;
#2, how much power you might consume during each of those days; and
#3, (with regard to solar only) how much sun you will get while camping.

You probably want to start by estimating #2 first: "how much power will I want to use" during the not-plugged in hours or days. If not using "big electrical" things like the air conditioner, the fridge ON ELECTRIC, or electric cooking appliances, you might get by with about 150 watts consumed per day. That includes evening lights, flushing the toilet, running the water pump, operating a few 12v powered detectors (including the CO/gas detector), running the overhead fan while cooking, and driving the 12v-powered igniters for gas appliances.

But on cold mornings or nights, running the heater needs a lot of additional 12v electricity. The heater runs on propane, but the fan uses a lot of 12v power.

If you want to use 120-VAC appliances (microwave, household-style coffee maker, etc.) you will need an inverter -- and probably a big one, in the case or those particular cooking appliances. A great option for coffee without an inverter is boiling water on the gas stovetop, then pouring the water over a melita-style paper filter into a carafe. Another option is using a permanent Mr.Coffee-style flat filter full of ghrounds right in the pan on the stove, just swish it around for a couple minutes while keeping the water hot. The disadvantage if the permanent Mr coffee filter is cleaning the grounds out after, the disadvantage of the disposable Melita is sthe need to slowly drip the hot water from above. (You could use a paper Mr. coffee inside of the permanent filter, but the coffee tends to be weak from the double filters.)

You need only a small inverter to charge disposable batteries and cellphones from 120V chargers, although there are lots of good (and cheap) "5 Volt USB" chargers which run directly from 12 volts DC.

Great ideas. We can't function without coffee and this would work

 

[Rebound123]

Then move to calculate total power per day (or night), in comparson to your USABLE battery size. A few specialized lead acid batteries can be run down to only 20% remaining, but those batteries are made for golf carts and indoor forklifts. They're very expensive, hard to find, and they are now being replaced by LFP batteries built for exactly that usage. (In the case of golf carts, either 36 or 48 volts).

The deep cycle lead acid batteries your dealer probably installed shouldn't be used past about 50% remaining. If the battery size is rated "100 Amp-Hours", and you have two of them, you can't use 200 amp hours of power! You will kill the batteries on the very first trip. From 100% full, you can use about 1/2 of the rated capacity - that's a total of 100 amp-hours from two batteries, maybe not quite enough for "piggy" power users to last a full day. (By the way, 100 amp-hours at average voltage 12.4 volts is 1240 watt hours (1.24 kilowatt hours).

LFP batteries are about 85% usable, rather than 50% usable, and they weight barely 1/2 as much as a lead acid battery of the same nominal size. (That is a ratio of 70% more usable power from the same "size" battery.) They can last 10-12 years if maintained carefully, but they need higher charging voltages and pretty careful management. They are roughly 3x more expensive, but the 4x lifespan advantage, higher usable proportion, and lower weight often make them a better choice -- in the long term. I own 840 rated amp-hours of LFP batteries, that's over 9000 watt-hours of usable power. (I can run the air conditioner in the Nevada desert, with no plug-ins.) But my batteries cost A LOT of money.

Sounds like if we get into the boon-docking, LFP may be the solution
Thx!

 

[Rebound123]

As an alternative to solar, you could also buy a small generator instead. They still work when its cloudy or raining, although they make a bit of noise. Some models can be run from propane, and using that fuel source (instead of gas) eliminates the issues of carb cleaning and draining gas at the end of the seasons before it goes "stale". I think that the rest of the engine, and the engine oil, also stays a bit cleaner when using propane. But the power goes down, and there are issues at higher altitudes.

I didn't know they made propane generators. I'll take a look