flugelboneman

[flugelboneman]

just how much life should we get out of our rv batttery? we are died in the wool plug in people who think roughin it is watching a black and white tv. recently we went rustic camping in with friends who had solar panels, generator, and a fully charged extra battery in the back of the truck. we knew we would have to conserve, so never used the furnace, had coleman lanterns. when we put out the slide and awning and used the power jack, we remained connected to the tv so we would not use the rv battery, whiich was fully charged. after two days on the site, we had no rv battery power whatsoever. i hooked up to the tv and ran it for about half an hour and had enough pwer to put the awning in, but had to push the slide manually to assist it in closing. even when hooked up, there was no power in the battery. i had always been under the impression that when you hooked up to the tv everything would work. i was amazed the battery was killed so completely even after being very careful. it is a 2010 battery, so is quite new. i will have this battery load tested. when we set up in a power site, the battery was fully charged within four hours. go figure!!!! any insight would be much appreciated. probably our last rustic camping experience.

[Terier]

I didn't have much faith in my RV battery to last two days of dry camping so I upgraded and added a second battery. I still need to be careful about battery usage since I don't have a generator or solar panels.

Sorry but a member with more experience will need to address your questions about the TV charging the RV battery.

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by flugelboneman

i had always been under the impression that when you hooked up to the tv everything would work.

obviously you haven't read up on this. nor will most tow vehicles recharge a depleted battery, unless you run the engine for 12 hours.

most of us seasoned dry campers, have two 12v or 6v batteries and a generator and/or solar power.
we used to own popups so we're very good at conserving power and water.
if you used the slide, that takes a huge amount of power. your trailer already has various parasitic power drains, when it just sitting and not being used, that can drain one battery in just a few days.

and you may not be conserving as much as you think. do you turn the water pump off when you not using it or did you just leave it on?

if you plan to dry camp more often, you'll need to get a matching battery to the one you have. and you may need to look into a good inverter generator to use for a couple of hours to recharge the batteries.