Comment: Electricity for Camping

Submitted: Friday, Jan 20, 2012 at 13:57

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Electricity for Camping

Revised March 2013 On an extended trip it's good to have some of the comforts of home. Electricity is obviously one of them and a good system can make all the difference to how comfortably

dave b3

for most people who have a comfortable lounge and house and tv and then go camping thats the way to go dingo.but for myself i work on mine 2weeks then live out of my car 2weeks. i generally read about 8 novels a fortnight,but i have a dream. yes i want to park at an isolated beach have my fishing rod out,cold beers and ...watch the cricket.
this article has been very helpful.
my car only single battery ,im thinking waeco 60ltr with the waeco deep cell battery plus a solar panel,maybe i need the dc to dc charger i dont mind spending money on fuel.
im looking at between $1500 to $2500 for fridge and power to get my troopy fully trooped up.
any advice would be great

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Reply By: Member - John and Val - Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 00:52

Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 00:52

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your comment. Happy to help if I can.

I like your dream!

The Waeco 60 litre is a good choice if you have room for it. Any bigger than that and the Waecos use a bigger hungrier compressor. Engel seem to use a bit less power, but they are pretty expensive to buy. The bigger Engels also use more power.

Personally I don’t think I’d buy a battery from Waeco though. I think the Waeco boxes are only 36 Ah, which isn’t a lot. I think you’ll get a lot more storage for your dollar by simply buying a 100 Ah deep cycle battery, or maybe 2 of them.

Don’t know where you are, but I’m guessing Pilbara? Lots of sunshine during the dry, but for a couple of weeks without running the Troopy, would you have enough to keep the beer cool when you want to get away at other times of the year? I don’t know. I reckon I’d start with a 100 Ah battery (or a bit bigger if you can lay hands on a 120Ah or more at a sensible price). For solar, if you can aim a panel at the sun for say 5 hours a day, a 120W one with an MPPT controller should be good. A dc-dc charger mightn’t help much because you are sitting stationary, but would certainly be very useful if you have to run the Troopy just to charge the battery. ( I wouldn’t use one with the little Waeco battery – it would kill it.)

Our Troopy has 2 x 100Ah batteries, a 30 amp dc-dc charger and 150W of solar. The dc-dc charger does most of the charging as we are usually moving most days. Your situation is different so you will probably rely mainly on solar, and a dc-dc might be less useful.

I reckon you’ll need a Voltage Sensitive Relay to control alternator charging (the ABR Sidewinder one with the link in the article is a good value one. ) You will need a battery or 2 – If you are in the east, Battery Value in Brisbane is good and very helpful. There’s a link in the article to their site too. ( Theirs is the MPPT controller I suggested. ) Solar panels – I used ebay and have been happy with the results. There are some rogues selling panels, so suggest before you buy ask for comment on the forum. I think your budget is probably about right, and you should be pretty pleased with the result.

Cheers

John