Newbie Queation

[razwrld]

Hello....I just bought my first camper.... Grey Wolf 27RR....traveling and stopped to make a cup of coffee.....battery full.....plugged into wall plug....no power.....I thought entire camper was 110...called dealer and he said it would not work unless plugged into a power source...what the heck...what's the battery and solar panel for anyway?....appreciate any help

[Boomerweps]

Ac is AC and DC is DC. All 110ac outlets need you to connect your trailer to an external AC source (unless you rig up an inverter to a dedicated outlet). DC, I.e., battery power, is the source for control power on the gas heater and refrigerator when gas powered as well as the water pump and tank sensors all the time. Also your lighting. I added a 12VDC plug and monitor panel in my trailer. You can buy an appropriate sized for your coffeemaker inverter and use that. However, it’s much simple to use your gas burners to heat the water and use a drip filter holder or a French press to make coffee when an AC power source is unavailable.

[bikendan]

Hi and Welcome to FRF.
Unfortunately the dealer should have informed you of this during the PDI/walk-through or you should have researched how the 2 different RV electrical systems work.
Suggest that you Google "the 12 Volt Side of Life". It's a good primer on the two different RV electrical systems.
Unless your RV has a whole house inverter installed, the 110v AC outlets require shore power or a generator.
Solar doesn't power anything directly. It just recharges the battery.
Generally factory inverters are found in higher level RVs, usually motorhomes.

[5picker]

As mentioned AC 120v is an entirely different system than the DC 12v battery supplied system. While battery(ies) and solar power can be INverted to 120v AC the inversion is somewhat inefficient and not the best use of resources ... unless... you have lots of battery storage capacity and lots of solar to replenish with.

So in short... unless you plug your R/V into shore power your AC outlets will not work.
If you have an INverter, you may have one or two outlets that will supply 120v to an AC outlet but not all and that outlet will be bound by the output capability of the INverter. Probably not enough for a coffee maker.

There are many good articles that explain the different power systems in an R/V... "The 12v Side of Life" is one such source.