power useage

You obviously need more power so work out how much you use per day and go from there. Another battery is probably a good start and maybe hook up to a solar panel during the day to run the fridge. There are lots of options and a lots of people on this site with heaps of knowledge. ( I'm not one of them ) Good Luck

Stuart and Gunny,

Here are my guesses at your daily consumption.

Weaco cr110 fridge full time - about 40-50 amphours (Ah)
tv for approx 6 hour per night - about 10-15 Ah
lap top approx 6 hours per night - about 10-20 Ah
300-600 watt inverter for approx 6 hours per night - depends on the load on the inverter - (if the load is one CPAP, then maybe 15 Ah without humidifier, 30+ with humidifier, more with a heated tube)
plus lead lights - depends on wattage, whether incandescent, halogen, LED, flourescent and usage time. - allow say 5 Ah.

TOTAL at least 100 Ah, and maybe 120 or more.

That is a very big ask of a 150 Ah battery. Depleted like his every day and your battery will not live long. The other major problem is that you must supply at least that much, plus say 10% to deal with inefficiencies, to recharge your battery each day. The 50A alternator will not supply this directly in a reasonable time, even if you added a dc-dc charger to deal with wiring losses.

Suggest have a read of our Electricity for Camping which covers a lot of options.

My general suggestion is that you need to minimise your electrical demand, increase your charging capacity (maybe add solar panels? maybe increase the alternator size, improve wiring and maybe add a dc-dc charger? ) and very important - double or treble your battery capacity. Apart from economising, none of that is cheap.

Hope that's some help, though I'm sure such suggestions aren't welcome!

Cheers

John

I agree with John above.
If you can, try to reduce your consumption. If you cannot do that then you will have to throw money at the problem - more battery capacity, more charging capacity.

Can you get a larger alternator for your tug? If so there are some options to improve the charging while driving.

I think you need a much bigger mains charger provided your battery can take a high inrush current. If you get more battery capacity you will need a bigger charger anyway, just to keep generator run times reasonable. I'd be looking at a 40 to 50 amp smart charger. Your EU20i will handle that.

If you want to minimise your use of the generator by adding solar, I think you'd be looking at about 400 watts of panels plus a decent MPPT regulator.

The above is based on my experience with similar daily useage. My battery capacity is 320 amp-hours, 25 amp dc-dc charger while towing, 440 watts of solar, 40 amp mains charger, Honda EU20i genny. As long as the sun shines I am self-sufficient, the Honda is the cloudy day back-up.

Cheers

As others have written, you really need either solar or if your going to be traveling daily a bigger alternator.

Your simply consuming more than your producing, if the aux is located in the car and you have a standard type alternator outputting around 14.4V @ 22C adding a DCDC charger would be pointless as the alternator would put more charge in faster, assuming adequate cabling is installed.

If you have a low voltage type alternator and I doubt you have as it's only 50A fitting a booster diode if possible would give you the fastest recharge, fitting a 20A DCDC charger if you can't would also improve your charging.

If battery is in van then a DCDC charger may help but again you will be limited to a 20A unit.

It would be pointless fitting a 40A charger as you alternator will not have the ability to supply sufficient current to allow it to reach its maximum output.

This is my opinion and based on my experiences, I am far from an expert.
A dc to dc ( 20 amp ) charger is just to slow to get power back in to a depleted battery. Note that you would be still pulling most of the charge from a dcdc charger just running you equipment which means not much is charging your battery.
Good wiring from the alternator will put in a least 40 amps per hour. After the battery is about 80% than a dcdc and solar comes into its own and this is if you drive for long periods.
Even a solar set up that puts out say 20 amps per hour hour say for 6 hours? is going to be bulky and expensive.
I also would consider the 50 amp alternator quoted to be incorrect, specially if it is a 4wd.
Quickest replacement power is a petrol 12 volt charger of at least 55 amps as stated.
Next is heavy wiring direct from from alternator which should be at least 80 amps up.
Next is a small generator with a battery charge of at least 40 amps
Next is large solar array of at least 360 watts and plenty of sunshine
Next, if driving, dcdc and solar panels on roof.
Last is dcdc only.
I do have all the above and consider the cost as a lesson.

I have not factored in charging overload nor size of battery. An upgrade of battery should be considered but you still need to factor in the above.

With my system I need to increase the battery bank to say at least 200 amps ( currently running 120 ).


Honky