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Old 03-27-2016, 12:41 PM   #1
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Dry Camping and Battery Charging

Rockwood Roo 19, 2016 model

We will be out for 7 nights, weather will be fairly cold, so heater will be on. No AC use anticipated. Other than that we will run the TV a tad and heat the mattresses at night.

My question is this: I have a 2,000 watt generator that I can run daily during generator hours.

1) Should I plug the shore power straight to the generator to charge the batteries, or should I get a battery charger and charge the battery from the charger that is powered by the generator. I understand the converter will charge that battery, but will it give it a high quality deep charge on a few hours of generator power?

2) Will a single (stock) 12V battery be enough to run the heater fan and the mattress heaters all night? I have little ones and I don't want to risk leaving them in the cold at 4am.

Many thanks in advance! Sorry if this is a silly question. Very new to this.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:25 PM   #2
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I don't have experience with generator charging of batteries, but I would suggest you get a 2nd battery and put it in parallel. Furnace can take down one battery in a night. Add the mattress heaters and I'm not sure even 2 batteries will do. Get some sleeping bags?

I'm sure others will chime in on charging and power use.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:33 PM   #3
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1. One battery is not enough. At least one more.

2. What is the wattage of the mattress heaters?

3. You can charge twice as fast by splitting the batteries from each other, charging one on the converter and the second on an external charger of sufficeient capacity.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:52 PM   #4
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The mattress heaters on my Roo 19 were 150 watts. If he runs both, that's 300 watts.

Now that I think about it, they run on 110VAC, so unless he uses an inverter, he can't use them anyway.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:56 PM   #5
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LongWay:

Note that as I said above, the heaters are only about 150 watts, basically as much heat as a good sized light bulb. They are NOT like electric blankets. I found this out the hard way. First time I tried them, I kept putting my hand under the covers, expecting it to be warm like an electric blanket. The plug seemed to be very hard to get into the fitting on the mattress, so I thought it wasn't getting in far enough to make an electrical connection, so I "filed" down the outside of the plug, hoping I could get it in better. (Didn't help, but it did make it look ugly.) Ended up giving up and getting into bed, and discovering an hour or two later (the wife had turned it on, even though I had given up) that it was quite warm in there! Then I read here that it's only about 150 watts.

So don't expect electric blanket warmth. But they do work great. Just "different."

Only issue will be - are 2 batteries enough?
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:15 PM   #6
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2 Group 24 or 27 will handle the heater blower and the control board for the fridge, but not much else. Remember you should not discharge batteries beyond 50%. That gives you around 90 amp. hours per night.

Is the TV run on an inverter or directly on 12 volts?
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:17 PM   #7
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My experience was that one 12v dual purpose battery would not run the furnace one night. Put in another and I could, but barely (depending on outside temps). You can recharge your batteries with a genset. I don't know if using a separate charger would make a difference. You'll have to determine what your inverter puts out v. the charger.
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:36 PM   #8
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Charge the batteries by plugging in the power cord to the generator.
Won't be able to use the mattress heaters on DC power. They are AC only & would suck down a battery. Suggest 2 batteries of same size & age wired in parallel or 2 6 volt batts wired in series. 6 volt have always worked better for me.
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:46 PM   #9
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Thanks for all the advice! I do have the camper at the dealer now getting a small wiring issue fixed and they are quoting the price on a second 12V battery. I will either go with that, or with the 4 6v option I have seen several posts on.

I didn't realize the mattress heaters were AC. We'll just pack a few extra blankets to handle that!

Not sure if the TV runs on AC or DC.

Does the Roo come with an inverter? I understand what it is and what it does, but I have no idea if it come equipped. The info I got with the unit was lacking.
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:49 PM   #10
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No inverter. You buy your own.
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:56 PM   #11
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Schumacher Electric 425W Power Inverter - Walmart.com

This is a power inverter, it plugs into your cig lighter or clips to a battery and gives you 110 house current, it is REALLY hard on batteries depending on what you are running but is great for traveling with the kids to charge laptops and iPads etc. In general they are nice to have around.
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Old 03-27-2016, 03:58 PM   #12
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So how does the quality of the factory converter rate? I bought the Roo because I didn't want to spend $$$$ upgrading everything, but one thing I don't want to chance is electrical issues. If it was just the wife and I, it wouldn't matter, but I have two little ones to look out of in this adventure as well.

Thanks again for all the info. This board has been a life saver!
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Old 03-27-2016, 04:04 PM   #13
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You should have no trouble with the converter in your Roo, If you plug your camper into your Generator during the day, you should charge your batteries no problem, You should be able to run your furnace all night on 2 batteries, your camper is set up to dry camp and that is what you will be doing. I would camp in the driveway for a night to try it all out just in case.
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Old 03-27-2016, 04:08 PM   #14
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I wouldn't hook a battery charger directly to the batteries unless they were decoupled from the trailer. My charger builds to as high as 16 volts. That might fry your electronics in the trailer.
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Old 03-27-2016, 04:21 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LongWayRound View Post
Rockwood Roo 19, 2016 model

We will be out for 7 nights, weather will be fairly cold, so heater will be on. No AC use anticipated. Other than that we will run the TV a tad and heat the mattresses at night.

My question is this: I have a 2,000 watt generator that I can run daily during generator hours.

1) Should I plug the shore power straight to the generator to charge the batteries, or should I get a battery charger and charge the battery from the charger that is powered by the generator. I understand the converter will charge that battery, but will it give it a high quality deep charge on a few hours of generator power?

2) Will a single (stock) 12V battery be enough to run the heater fan and the mattress heaters all night? I have little ones and I don't want to risk leaving them in the cold at 4am.

Many thanks in advance! Sorry if this is a silly question. Very new to this.
1. Just plug the shore cord into the generator. Your converter will easily do the job of recharging the batteries. Ours has been working doing this, on our Roo, for 10 years now.

2. Get a matching battery. This will cut down the amount of generator time.
As was said, the mattress heaters are NOT 12v DC, they are 120v AC.

How are you going to run the tv? They come with 120v AC televisions.
Unless you only use it while hooked up to the generator.
I installed a 400w inverter to run the tv and dvd player.

We are experienced dry campers, so I have some questions.

How will you deal with fresh, gray and black water?
Do you have a tote tank? how will you refill with fresh water?
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Old 03-27-2016, 04:51 PM   #16
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We are experienced dry campers, so I have some questions.

How will you deal with fresh, gray and black water?
Do you have a tote tank? how will you refill with fresh water?
We will be camping at Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. Although there are no campsite utilities, there is a dump station and water in the park.

My plan is to toe the camper, without water to Estes Park (2 day tow) and get a site the night before we head into the National Park. During that night we will make sure the batteries are topped off and fill up the fresh water tank.

We are staying several nights in the National Park and I expect to have to hook up the unit and drag it to fill/empty tanks at least once.

Any advice on the above is certainly welcome!
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Old 03-27-2016, 04:53 PM   #17
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How are you going to run the tv? They come with 120v AC televisions.
Unless you only use it while hooked up to the generator.
I installed a 400w inverter to run the tv and dvd player.
Running the TV is not of primary importance, so based on that we likely won't be running it. We will charge up cell phones and the kids iPads in the car every day, so in the event we get stuck inside for weather, they will have those. Barring weather keeping us in, hopefully there will be very little time for TV
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Old 03-27-2016, 05:34 PM   #18
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We will be camping at Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. Although there are no campsite utilities, there is a dump station and water in the park.

My plan is to toe the camper, without water to Estes Park (2 day tow) and get a site the night before we head into the National Park. During that night we will make sure the batteries are topped off and fill up the fresh water tank.

We are staying several nights in the National Park and I expect to have to hook up the unit and drag it to fill/empty tanks at least once.

Any advice on the above is certainly welcome!
So, you're saying that you're going to close up the tent ends, raise the stabilizers, roll up the awning, rehitch the trailer, take out the chocks and the reverse the whole process AT LEAST TWICE, just to dump the tanks and refill the FW tank?

For just the two of us, using water conservation, a 7 day trip would require us to dump the gray tank a minimum of two times and also refill the FW tank twice.
We take a 6 gallon water can to refill the tank and our 15 gallon tote tank to dump excess gray water. We can easily go 7 days without needing to dump the black tank.

So we never have to break camp just to get water or dump tanks.

I think you need to reconsider your water/holding tank strategy.
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Old 03-27-2016, 05:45 PM   #19
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You can charge twice as fast by splitting the batteries from each other, charging one on the converter and the second on an external charger of sufficeient capacity.
If you parallel the batteries, this is not recommended. Just use either the camper's converter or the dedicated charger to charge the batteries together. If properly wired, they will charge and discharge balanced and your batteries will last far longer.
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Old 03-27-2016, 05:48 PM   #20
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So, you're saying that you're going to close up the tent ends, raise the stabilizers, roll up the awning, rehitch the trailer, take out the chocks and the reverse the whole process AT LEAST TWICE, just to dump the tanks and refill the FW tank?

For just the two of us, using water conservation, a 7 day trip would require us to dump the gray tank a minimum of two times and also refill the FW tank twice.
We take a 6 gallon water can to refill the tank and our 15 gallon tote tank to dump excess gray water. We can easily go 7 days without needing to dump the black tank.

So we never have to break camp just to get water or dump tanks.

I think you need to reconsider your water/holding tank strategy.
Concur; a tote is an important accessory when dry camping. Just hook it behind the tow vehicle and drive slowly to the dump station.
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