Comment: Electricity for Camping

Submitted: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 12:43

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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

gjhakka

Hi John,

Great article....thanks for taking the time and effort to enlighten us.
I would however like some further advice please.

I am fitting a tri battery set up to my Jeep Wrangler (in cabin behind the front seats). Apart from the start battery, I have a 75ah Thumper and am looking at adding a 100 to 120ah AGM. I probably spend 3 to 4 days at the most in one place and would need to rely on the vehicle to charge the batteries ( I don't have solar but may? go that way down the track). The system is to run the 40 l Engel, some LED camp lighting and a few battery chargers - iPad, iPhone, cameras etc.

I have been advised to run the 2 aux batteries in parallel.
What do you recommend as the best way to keep them topped up? Redarc BCDC1240, CTEKD250S Dual, Pirahna DBE180S have all been recommended to me by various people, but I am totally confused as to what to use.
Mate, any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Hakka

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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 Hakka,

Sorry about the slow reply, but we have been travelling overseas, with very erratic access to the web.

Paralleling is the way to go, but when paralleling batteries they should preferably be of the same type (gel and gel, or agm and agm) and in similar condition. I use a 30A dc-dc charger from ABR Sidewinder to charge a parallel pair of 100Ah batteries, but something smaller, say a 20A one, might be kinder. I have no personal experience with the chargers you mention, but have heard good reports (and bad!) of them all. The Ctek includes solar as well, which sounds good and may be useful to you in the future. Suggest talk to Peter at Battery Value (a member on this site) about dc-dc chargers - I know he sells a 20A one which looks to be better than most, and he is very knowledgeable and helpful.

Cheers

John