Dry Camping External Power Source?

[jennymoase]

Hello, I am a virgin burner and my group and I are wondering about an external power source for our trailer.

I searched thru the forums and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so apologies in advance if I am repeating anything.

There is 4 of us who will be using a pop-up tent trailer for water (shower/washing), cooking, occasional lights and refrigeration. I am concerned that our battery will be drained by the time we leave (or beforehand), and therefore we may have a problem leaving with working lights and brakes.

Wondering if I could get some suggestions of conservation, power sources, getting a jump, or maybe we should rent a generator? Looking for advice from experienced burners.

Thank you!

[some seeing eye]

You are on the right track. Refrigeration can take some power, unpredictably on-off. For continuous loads most people get a generator, like a Honda. If just lights, many people get a "deep cycle" battery and charge it at Snow Koan solar camp. If you search generator on these boards you will find quite a bit of information. Also many people buy BM ice for coolers, making a refrigerator unnecessary. Always bring jumper cables to BM.

[andy]

Unfortunately there is no really good solution to a small camp powering a single refrigerator. You can power LED lights day and night on some tiny batteries but even a small fridge consumes a lot of energy, doubly so in the hot environment of BRC. A small generator will easily handle that (don't rent one, you can buy it for $150 or so) but fridges have a thermostat and consume power intermittently and you can't turn your gennie on and off automatically. Even a solution with a car battery and an inverter to be recharged by the gennie would work but be quite inefficient since the battery can't accept nearly as much power as the gennie has to offer, so it will be running quite a bit with most of its power wasted.

Seriously for 4 people a much better solution is a few very good insulated coolers (NOT the Styrofoam ones) and buy ice at Arctica every day or so for $3/bag. Get a block of ice for each cooler (lasts much longer) and share a few bags of cubed ice to fill in the gaps. Also: 1) Don't put your cooler on the ground! Raise it up a few inches on wood blocks. 2) Drain your cooler once a day.

Welcome to the dust!

[Jackass]

A good deep cycle will have enough juice for some lights and occasional fan usage, fridge should run on propane which if full will last far longer than one week.

Hook jumper cables to the deep cycle battery twice during the week and idle your vehicle for 1hr., no need for a gennie.

4 year Tactical Tent Trailer Veteran

[some seeing eye]

Cooking with electricity: stovetop, oven, microwave or boiling takes a lot of power. Most people at BM cook with propane - camp stoves, grills and the like. Hey we're camping in almost wilderness!

People will no doubt get tired of my suggestion to visit the Alternative Energy Zone village. There you can learn about solar ovens and solar concentrating cookers, as well as solar panels and batteries. On my scheduled in What/Where/When tour, they served up fresh solar-baked chocolate chip cookies!

Planned menus will help decide cooking needs.

[Captain Goddammit]

OK, lets get this shit right.
First, the battery in your trailer doesn't operate the brakes or tail lights, that comes from the tow vehicle.
Next, virtually all camper fridges are propane... they consume little or no electricity. If for some reason you have an electric fridge, you'll want a generator.
Next, no you cannot buy a generator for $150 unless it's one of those incredibly loud, irritating lawn-mower engine things. You'll hate it and so will everyone around you. $800-$1000 will get you a QUIET and reliable Honda EU2000 or similar Yamaha, and around $500-ish will get you one of the Chinese knock-offs that seem to work pretty well.
It's hard to believe your trailer wouldn't have a propane stove. If you want to cook outside, bring a propane stove/grill.
It doesn't sound like you need very much electricity, you could get by with a deep-cycle battery or two if you rationed your power use, or as suggested recharge it by jumper cables with your tow vehicle.

[GreyCoyote]

In addition to all of the above, just camp nearby someone with a genny and bring a long cord. Recharge the battery every couple of days. Use the extra power like training wheels: try to go as far as you can on the battery while learning to balance the loads. If you goof, recharge it. This way you get some idea of how to do it better next year.

[Captain Goddammit]

I'll second GreyCoyote, and add - bring LONG cords, a few hundred feet at least. 12 gauge minimum. It's surprising how short 200 feet is out there, and really long cords make the difference between light and darkness. Most people with generators, myself included, will let you plug in for battery charging, it's a negligible power draw. 300 feet wouldn't be a bad idea.

[jennymoase]

Wow! Great suggestions everyone! Thx so much for helping us out Im actually unsure weather the stove and fridge are propane powered or electric. We're renting the trailer out of Oregon and don't know all the details about it, yet. Good to know I only need battery power from the tow vehicle to operate lights and brakes (that was my main concern). I will definitely be bringing jump cables and look into the few hundred feet of LONG cables. I prefer the use of ice and coolers over refrigerations for space and a few other things.

Thanks again! This has been great (now if we could just get the rest of our tickets, we'd be set )

[rmc50]

I can't imagine that the trailer would have anything other than a propane refrigerator. A refrigerator that runs off 12V DC is even more expensive than the propane variety and it would suck a standard size battery dry in less than a day (been there, done that).

On a pop up tent trailer the refrigerator is going to be really small! A great place to store things that you don't want to get wet but not where you will want to store your drinks. Bring a big ice chest and plan on buying ice.

Jumper cables are a really good idea. You do NOT need really long ones. You will probably unhitch your vehicle just to get the trailer level, so then just turn the tow vehicle around so that the front is close to where the battery is and standard jumper cables will do just fine. In fact, the cheap light weight ones will do fine as you won't be putting starting current through them. Don't expect your car to fully recharge the battery in an hour, however. It will probably bring it up to 40% in an hour but then the rate of charge drops off considerably and it could take 10 hours or more to fully charge.

The main power use you will have will be lights and the water pump. The water pump runs very infrequently so it really doesn't use much, but when it does run it needs a lot of current. The lights can really add up, especially if you accidentally go out in the evening and leave all the lights on. Turn on just what you need, turn them off when they are not needed anymore and you will probably last the week.

If you want to run 12V fans, TV, stereo, etc then you will run the battery down a lot faster. In this case, I second the suggestion to bring a long extension cord and try to bum power from a neighbor. Your trailer would be a negligible load to a good size generator.


Rod

[jennymoase]

Thx Rod! Some more great suggestions. Thx again everyone for helping out