Additional batteries

Nothing stupid about that Bob, more batteries allows one to stop longer without charging. If you towed a trailer load you could stop for a month without charging...just put them on a charger when you get home but that's overkill and very expensive.

Bob&Deb,

Nothing wrong with your logic, BUT:-

3 batteries take up a lot of room. It would be impractical to fit them inside the engine bay of any vehicle and probably even most camper trailers. Therefore they would need to be distributed throughout both vehicle and trailer of some kind.

The time to charge 3 batteries would also be prolonged. The next camp may need to be a long way away for all batteries to reach a reasonable state or charge.

Therefore, most people would have a generator, or solar panel, or both.

Hi bob&Deb, first off, so you know where I am coming from, I manufacture dual battery charge control equipment for 4X4s, caravans, motor homes and so on. The reason I have stated this is so you know I have a vested interest in people who use multiple batteries to power there camping requirements.
But as THE VAST MAJORITY of 4X4s use auxiliary batteries, charged by nothing more than the vehicle’s alternator to power the gear, your idea is not only a good one but is practised by a lot of people.
Furthermore, depending on the size of your alternator and the size of the batteries, it will take you no longer to charge 2 or 3 additional batteries as it will take to charge 1 additional battery. It may start to take longer to charge 4 ADDITIONAL batteries and then it would depend on whether you were driving at night where you would be needing some of your alternator power for your lights. Even then, an hours extra driving time would still have ALL your batteries charged.
If you have the room and are not planing to staying at a given location for any length of time, addition batteries make far far more economic sense than either solar panels or generators.
Bob&Deb I don’t know if you have seen other postings on this subject but you are about to see that you have probably opened Pandora's box raising this subject.
Cheers and seasons greetings

Hi Bob & Deb - Let me bore you with my experiences trying different set ups (holidays being every 5-10 years apart).

Rig 1 - medium wheel base landcruiser and tent, being first time out we generally stopped at parks with powered sites. Always asked if we could camps with the "oldies" - great people, great tales of their adventures, and quieter nights. Not very adventurous ourselves. Outfit fine until it rained and tent (didn't take a fly) filled with water.

Rig 2 - Back of landcruiser ute set up with weldmesh frame and canvas cover, with roof rack. Small generator for Engel car fridge when not on the road, and lights and radio in the evening. Had to put our stuff on the ground to roll out the swag on the back of the ute, but it was the very best camping under the stars in remote places. No need to find nice clear and level spots - if there was room for the cruiser, there was room to camp. A bit a work moving stuff on and off the tray. Not the best if it rained. We weathered a cyclone one night camped near the Peron Peninsular. We always camped miles from anywhere, so the generator noise wasn't an issue.

Rig 3 - Nissan Patrol wagon (has 2nd battery built in), with wind up off road caravan. Set it up with one portable solar panel (built a stand to face it to the sun or could chuck it on the roof if stopped at midday) and one deep cycle battery in the caravan. Proper engel caravan fridge, in additional to the car fridge in the wagon. 12 volts lights were adequate for us to read at night. Power supply adequate; didn't even take the generator. The single panel charged the system much faster than it did from the car when we were driving. I think the car looks after it's own batteries before charging the caravan battery. One hour with the solar panel (even late in the afternoon) would get levels up to scratch it the day's driving hadn't. If we were worried about battery levels, we'd leave the panel facing East overnight, and it started charging at sunrise.

Rig 4 - Looking at an "all seasons" "comfort in old age" longer term travelling setup - we are about to leave on our first holiday in our Bushtracker caravan. Four deep cycle batteries (in box under the bed - yes, it is ventilated), 4 solar panels on roof. It has been so hot lately, that we purchased a generator yesterday that will run the air conditioner. Everything else is on 12 volt, with an inverter for running small appliances such as shaver, laptop, phone charger etc. Genny solely for the creature comfort of the air con - now that's not really camping, is it? It isn't the same as sleeping on the back of the ute with the canvas rolled up; it's a home rather than camping.

Moral of the story - if you've got this far - depending on room in your rig - you could add more batteries, but if in sunny climates, one deep cycle and one panel is adequate - but you may not get much benefit of more than one if you car doesn't keep them all charged. The sun is free, so take a solar panel.

Hope this helps, Motherhen

Hi motherhen, with the system you now have, you should just about be able to stop anywhere for as long as you like and never run out of power. As for the batteries not getting enough charge while you were driving, with everything working correctly, you should have had no trouble charging the batteries.

There could have been a number of different reasons for the batteries not charging but even if you had an older type alternator with an output of only 45 amps and if the batteries had been connected together using heavy cable and if you had an appropriate dual battery charge controller then the system should have been fine.

Back to the solar panels. Most of the customers I deal with, intend to go camping at a given location for no more than 2 or 3 days before they either head home again or move on to another location.

The point being raised by Bob&Deb was that they thought that it was just as easy to fit additional batteries to meet someone’s camping need as it was to have a solar panel or a generator.
I personally like the idea of using solar panels to keep the batteries charged but the cost of the solar panels does not make them a cost effective alternative to just adding an additional battery.

Motherhen, your system would have cost you about $3000 to set up while 2 deep cycle batteries, a dual battery charge controller, cable and mounting hardware would give you a system that would meet most camper’s needs for 3 to 5 days without needing recharging and would set you back about $500 to $700. I think for most people the dual battery system would be fine and they could use the $2400 saved, for other things.

Cheers

Check this out for charging batteries if you are staying for awhile in one spot:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/goldway/page6a.html

Haven't tries it mwself yet but will be doing the mods in next few months

Cheers

Rod