Battery Usage (Newbies)

[AZTonyKaren]

Hello everyone,

We bought our first travel trailer (2021) and forgot to ask a basic question before leaving the dealer. Typically how long will the battery run the trailer? Never had to worry about this previously as we had an RV with a generator.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Tony and Karen

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by AZTonyKaren

Hello everyone,

We bought our first travel trailer (2021) and forgot to ask a basic question before leaving the dealer. Typically how long will the battery run the trailer? Never had to worry about this previously as we had an RV with a generator.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Tony and Karen

Depends on what battery it has.
If it's the typical basic Group 24 12v dual-purpose marine battery that most dealers install, 2-3 days IF you don't run the furnace.
You do know that you can't use the 110v AC outlets, microwave, tv nor a/c, rignt?

[dbledan]

Ha my group24 battery got me a day or two depending on what I ran. Just the fridge and some lights got me a few days. Don't run The battery below 50%.

It really comes down to your usage amd what the dealer supplied. With a few GC 6v batteries I can go several days without issues amd still only go to 50%.

Furnace is a hog
DC fridge will drain the battery before you get there
Non led lights are hogs

Figure out what your current draws are in the driveway and rough out your time there keeping watch. Charge and go.

[NavyLCDR]

If you have a propane capable refrigerator make sure to run it on propane! Also, lead-acid batteries require several charge/discharge cycles to reach their full capacities. I would also say 2-3 days running only led lights and occasional TV.

[Hclarkx]

I'm late to the thread, but a battery monitor of some type will be very helpful and reduce the risk of battery damage. With it you will soon have a grasp on your energy usage, the usable battery capacity, when to ease up on loads, and the needed charging and similar. They start under $40. The AiLi is popular.

[TitanMike]

If you plan on "living on battery power" for anything more than an overnight stop in a rest area or parking lot, do yourself a huge favor and invest in a small, quiet, generator. If you don't plan on running a high current device like the A/C, a small generator from 1800-2200 watts would do fine.

Charging batteries using the converter will use 700 to 1,000 watts. A microwave will need ~1350-1500 Watts.

Lastly, when charging the battery(s) plan on charging them for several hours, depending on how low it got before charging. The "push button battery monitor" may show "full" after an hour or two but go back and check after charging has been shut off for an hour or more to get the REAL story.

Depending on size, a battery that's discharged 50% can take 2-3 hours to reach about 90% state of charge but to get the last 10% into the battery, it can take another 2-3 hours of charging. Again this depends on the size of the battery(s). If you have an 80 amp hour group 24 battery the above should be a good estimate. If you have two of them, twice as long perhaps.

One of he biggest mistakes made is to "short charge" batteries because the factory battery monitor showed "full".