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Old 01-16-2007, 05:10 AM   #15
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I love this topic. Lurking and Learn
So many wonderful ideas and solutions for boondocking soooooooo another from me


<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mich_Camper:
Don - (We met last June with David, Mark and others). With your 'stream solar is out for on top, I don't have them either. So, what I did (may work for you) Honda EU2000i, works good for morning coffee, after that fry pan for pancakes, eggs whatever. In the mean time, I had pulled out the old Magnatek converter and put in a PD 9160 charger for the batteries. Changed the batteries from 1 12 volt to 4 - 6 volt golf. Did the same hook up as on Jack Mayer(sp) site series-parallel. In the afternoon fire it up again for evening meal and dessert . Changed many of the hi usage lights out for fluorescent, kitchen, dining, living, one in bath, and outside.

NOTE: Cec could not hear the Honda from the window above it. She had to ask if it was running so that she could use power.

Added an Anderson style plug (small hi-lo) plug between the trailer and truck (parallel the Bargman pos and neg) to allow high amperage (#4 welding cable) for quick charge from the truck as opposed to the #10 in the cords.

With the small running time, and easy use, we went from 3 days (one batt) to 10 days (stopped camping, end of test).

Water - Normally carry 40? gallons. gray / black I don't know. Bladder tank to bring in water and large blue boy to take away. appropriate pumps.

Conserve - Dish water to flush toilet, added a hot water bypass back to the fresh tank for that time to get hot water to the sink. Turn on bypass for 30 seconds and "instant" hot at the rear kitchen sink.

Hope this helps - Bill </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
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Old 02-02-2007, 09:01 AM   #16
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Thanks for starting this thread back up. I have been on Nick Russell's web page ( www.gypsyjournal.net ) for over an hour now. lots of good info and a great series of articles on their bus conversion.

Also lots of good info in the thread itself for a newbi like me
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Old 02-03-2007, 04:43 PM   #17
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I'm new here and hope some of you vetrans who have been doing this for ahile can help? We have 3 solar panels and 4 6-volt AGM Batteries installed and a 2000watt inverter.

The dealer told us running the inverter would suck the life out of the batteries in a few hours of running it non-stop and to use it sparingly.

Well the system was acting funny like it was overloaded and reading the owners manual it says to draw some power off the batteries if they've been plugged in charging too long. I unplugged from shore power (We try and stay with full hook-ups every few days to dump and top everything off) and left the inverter on for the rest of the day with a bunch of stuff running. The wife even cooked lunch using the microwave 3 times trying to suck some of the battery life out and my voltage only dropped from 13.5 to 11.5 after about 5 hours of running the inverter?

This seems like a long time for it to be running at full capacity? Is my system on the fritz or what?
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Old 02-03-2007, 05:55 PM   #18
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Every Miles A Memory - HERE is a link to a site about batteries that I have found useful. Most of the information is about wet cell batteries, but he touches on AGM batteries as well. There are a number of other good sites on batteries, but I can't seem to locate them right now.

A resting voltage (after sitting a time with no load or charging) of 12.25 volts is 50% discharged and is usually considered to be the recommended maximum discharge to avoid shortening battery life. Although the voltage might rebound if the battery is allowed to sit for a time with no load, 11.5 volts is pretty well discharged.

We have two 6 volt batteries and a 1500 watt inverter. The batteries will usually give us several hours of TV, satellite receiver, satellite internet, and one or two fluorescent lights before needing to be recharged.

HERE is another link on inverters by the same author. Hope this helps.
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Old 02-03-2007, 06:35 PM   #19
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Every Miles - THIS is one of the other web sites on 12 volt systems. It is a little less technical than the one in my previous post.
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Old 02-04-2007, 02:37 AM   #20
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Thanks Paz, I did quite a bit of reading and I think I'm going to stop by the place mentioned in the previous post to see if they can diagnose my problem?

Thanks for the info and I think I feel a little more knowlegdeable this morning
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Old 02-04-2007, 05:58 AM   #21
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Every Miles - Sounds like you may not really have a problem with your system. You just may need to determine optimum settings to get the best use from your batteries and solar panels. Good luck and let us know how everything works out.
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Old 05-09-2007, 06:46 PM   #22
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If you learn to be very thrifty with your water and power, you should have no trouble staying 4-5 days in your Airstream (one person).

I used to have a Lance camper, and was able to survive for four days on the camper's freshwater capacity of 39 gal and the 15 gal gray tank. And that included a shower every night. Oh wait... one caveat. I did have to dump gray every third night, but I could go four days on the water supply.

I also had a pair of 120 watt solar panels and a total of three batteries -- a single Group 31 12v and two 6v's, and only ran the generator when I needed the microwave.

It takes a little practice, but if you're careful, you can do it and still be comfortable.

Rob
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Old 08-06-2007, 02:22 PM   #23
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We bought a tank last year for extra waste. It will hold enought waste/ water for a day with dishes, two showers a day and toilet. It hooks to the back on the trailer hitch ball. We just tow it to the sewer tank and refill the water as needed.
We found it very handy at a campground last week.
A lot of roadside stops have sewer dumps and water. So with our new Rv I am sure we could camp at least two or three days before dumping!
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Old 04-28-2008, 09:17 PM   #24
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We have the biggest issue with the black water... When we go there are 4 to 6 of us... I really push for everyone to use the pit potty if possible. That way we save the black for night time emergencies that grand kids can have. If everyone would do that we could make 10-14 days but usually it only lasts 7 at the max. We have 125 fresh and 40 each for grey and black ... now who thought that up???? Anyway we dribble grey with a 30 foot hose if we have to... but if worse comes to worse we can hook up and pull to the last town to dump... its a bit of a pain but we have at times just made a day of it. Get a site spend the night do some laundry shop etc... then back to camp... That has only happened twice on 14 day stays.
When we travel I try to keep only 20 gallons of water and then fill before we head to the middle of no where...
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Old 04-29-2008, 05:02 AM   #25
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We have a pod(or at least that is what i call it). You can drain the grey stuff into it and toe is behind a vehicle to dump. Grant has loaded it into the half ton for longer drives.You can get them in different sizes too...or more than one.
It came in real handy at a camp ground once where we could not get a sewer site for the camper. The campground cleaning staff quit i the middle of a full lone weekend. The showers still worked...so we used the pod for toilet.It was great.
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Old 06-10-2008, 07:56 PM   #26
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Here is how we do it. Past we owned 30' 5th Wheel, and had truck camper before that, now 40' Class a Diesel Pusher.
Summer, no heat load but cool load, if boondocking, would run genset to cool coach down in afternoon, get it real cool, and the shut down genset. This also charges 8-6V GC Batteries. The inverter will run the refer (Amana Residential) for almost 24 hours, so we are good there. Have 110 gal fresh water, 105 gallon black and 107 gal gray. We use about 6 gal for shower each day, maybe a tad less. We bring 3 gallons of potable drinking water, and that lasts about 3 days (don't like taste of tank water), we figure with the 143 gallons of diesel, we can last outside being real conservative for about 10 days before we need to dump. We are going to try it once we get the free campground book and all the bugs worked out on the mh.
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Old 12-06-2008, 08:13 PM   #27
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I've been boondocking a lot since I took off RVing solo, and my biggest problem is the shower. I have long hair and it takes so much water to rinse it, I run out of fresh water quite often. Sometimes getting fresh water is a long way away . . . so I try to conserve. I did start carrying four gallon jugs of water in the bathroom to help with flushing to save the fresh water for showers. I like to go to a park at least once a week to just stand in the hot water for as long as I want though . . . . I feel like if I can boondock for a week, save all that money, I deserve at least one night in the RV park. It's not a problem since I like to move every week when I'm traveling anyway. I am going to check on juicing up my solar power though and get an inverter so that I can watch TV in my bedroom instead of the living room if I want to do that. Otherwise, I've found that boondocking is really an enjoyable way of seeing more things for longer than running back and forth from an RV park.
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Old 12-07-2008, 12:03 PM   #28
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I have always wondered about staying clean with not a lot of water. The lone hair ...esp as a blond is a problem. I wash may hair daily. For me a big draw back would be no bathtub. I know a lot of people are thinking why tub??
With my arthritis the bath tub is a biggy for me. A hot soak does so much to make my body feel better.I don't know what i would do without a tub. A hottub would be a good thing but there are none boondocking. Anyone else have this problem??
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