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Bruce
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Bruce is offline
Wollongong, Australia
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27-10-2018, 11:06 AM
1

Holiday Power

I wasn't sure whether to put this in DIY or here but I think it is more relevant to holidays.

There is now a page on my Camper site devoted entirely to power - both mains and 12v in my car and teardrop camper in text and photos.

If you have a car and or caravan it might be of interest:

https://www.bcl.id.au/p/power.html

I can answer questions if you have any or take suggestions about what I have missed.
Julie1962
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27-10-2018, 11:46 AM
2

Re: Holiday Power

I find it fascinating Bruce, would have been really helpful in our campervan building years. These days we have the proper plumbing and site electrics so we are sitting pretty with power and heat. When we were campervan building we belonged to a couple of forums specialised in helping with self builds I bet you'd be popular on them as you seem to have it sussed.
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Bruce
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27-10-2018, 12:19 PM
3

Re: Holiday Power

Originally Posted by Julie1962 ->
I find it fascinating Bruce, would have been really helpful in our campervan building years. These days we have the proper plumbing and site electrics so we are sitting pretty with power and heat. When we were campervan building we belonged to a couple of forums specialised in helping with self builds I bet you'd be popular on them as you seem to have it sussed.
I suspect I would get more from them because unless I see something special I am very content with my set up at the moment.

The only thing I have tucked away in the back of my mind is a way of charging the camper battery from the car BUT it may be as unnecessary as it would be costly. I could be better off getting a bigger battery and a portable solar panel(s) (or just the latter) though at the moment doing nothing is the preferred option.
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27-10-2018, 12:46 PM
4

Re: Holiday Power

We always found it better to keep the battery for the car just for the job it was intended and isolated the campervan part of the electrics from it. Always had in back of our minds what if we drained the battery ! We didn't buy a bigger battery exactly we invested in a proper leisure battery and kept a topped up car battery as back up. We went onto caravan sites to charge up every three days or couple of times local garages charged up our batteries while we were out and about exploring their areas. Worked for us but you may be wanting something more certain as I have no idea what the set up for sites etc is like where you are.
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Bruce
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Wollongong, Australia
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27-10-2018, 02:00 PM
5

Re: Holiday Power

Originally Posted by Julie1962 ->
We always found it better to keep the battery for the car just for the job it was intended and isolated the campervan part of the electrics from it. Always had in back of our minds what if we drained the battery ! We didn't buy a bigger battery exactly we invested in a proper leisure battery and kept a topped up car battery as back up. We went onto caravan sites to charge up every three days or couple of times local garages charged up our batteries while we were out and about exploring their areas. Worked for us but you may be wanting something more certain as I have no idea what the set up for sites etc is like where you are.
Yes the car battery is totally isolated from the camper and the Aux battery by the controller.

The controller only allows the Aux battery to be charged when the car alternator is running. In my car it is not one of these new fangled systems but the old fashioned one that fully charges the car battery and provides a constant 15 volt (ish) output which can charge the aux battery. If it was the new type of regulator then a wire has to be connected to the ignition to tell the controller when the engine is running.

When the voltage falls below 12.7 (ish) the controller isolates the source so the car battery can not charge or be flattened by the aux battery however the controller will always take power from a solar system.

This is a far more sophisticated system than the older Voltage Sensitive Relay (VSR) which used to be used on dual battery systems but it is also more expensive too. The advantage is that it can properly charge a variety of battery types with different charge characteristics.

Here are the actual figures:


CONVENTIONAL ALTERNATOR

12V: Turn On: 13.4-20V
Turn Off: <12.8V


https://www.projecta.com.au/dual-battery-charger-idc25/
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27-10-2018, 02:27 PM
6

Re: Holiday Power

I hope you enjoy your trips Bruce we always found you have to live in the van for a few days to really iron out any kinks.
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30-10-2018, 04:11 AM
7

Re: Holiday Power

Most interesting. I am particularly interested your roof mounts. Is more or less a permanent? Have you encountered or worry about damage to the panels? What's the longest trip you have been on now using your current setup running chargers, the television, and fridge?

Off topic, but what if anything do you do about heating water? Forgive me, I think you mentioned it, but I have since forgotten.

As always, the blog is brilliant!
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31-10-2018, 07:40 AM
8

Re: Holiday Power

Originally Posted by Surfermom ->
Most interesting. I am particularly interested your roof mounts. Is more or less a permanent? Have you encountered or worry about damage to the panels? What's the longest trip you have been on now using your current setup running chargers, the television, and fridge?

Off topic, but what if anything do you do about heating water? Forgive me, I think you mentioned it, but I have since forgotten.

As always, the blog is brilliant!
The longest single trip using the current set up was 7900km to north Queensland and back. which took about a month.

During that time I ran the fridge without ever plugging it into mains power the battery always showed fully charged or nearly so. But the TV, kettle etc used mains supplied by the camp site which I paid for (the average cost for a powered site was $28). When on the road I heated water for tea or coffee using a little gas stove.
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06-11-2018, 04:38 AM
9

Re: Holiday Power

That's an incredible number of miles for one trip, Bruce, but from the looks of the photos, well worth it. Queensland is on my shortlist before I get too old to surf and dive.

After that many miles, was there anything in your setup that you found lacking and change afterwards?

What was the camping situation like? Could you camp freely along the way or are you restricted to campgrounds? The camping fees sound reasonable for what you get. I can see why having the power that you do enables you to be satisfied enough to stay out for weeks at a time.
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Bruce
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06-11-2018, 05:06 AM
10

Re: Holiday Power

Originally Posted by Surfermom ->
That's an incredible number of miles for one trip, Bruce, but from the looks of the photos, well worth it. Queensland is on my shortlist before I get too old to surf and dive.

After that many miles, was there anything in your setup that you found lacking and change afterwards?

What was the camping situation like? Could you camp freely along the way or are you restricted to campgrounds? The camping fees sound reasonable for what you get. I can see why having the power that you do enables you to be satisfied enough to stay out for weeks at a time.
The only thing that really bugged me on that trip was my Esky which required constant feeding with ice, at remote locations ice could get up to $8 a bag. Somewhere in my blog is a comment about how much it cost but for the whole trip it was something like $300 of ice to preserve $40 worth of food and milk. The fridge is a much better idea.

You could camp anywhere you like really, who is going to stop you a few hundred Km from anywhere? I have used rest areas in the past but I tend to stay in commercial camp grounds which averaged $28 a night (from memory) for a powered site, I like a couple of showers every day. Some small towns have small free camp sites with the idea that you stop and spend money in the town or at the pub.

Personally I don't like the idea of these self contained caravans - watching the caravan owner carrying a container of shit to dump (there is no nice way of saying it) really puts me off. I prefer the camp ground toilets (which are excellent), using a public toilet or digging a hole in the bush (rare but I carry a shovel in case)

The northern season doesn't really start until June/July so the sites tend to be a bit cheaper I don't mind the heat so I tend to travel north just outside the height of the season (April/May or Sept/Oct). For example some years ago I was at Uluru/Ayers Rock in November when it is really starting to heat up but there were few caravans and tents at that time so it was uncrowded with just a few Japanese/Chinese tourists in coaches or hired cars.

I seem to remember you asked me about the solar panel getting damaged. The biggest danger to the solar panel is during thunderstorms when we can get hail the size of golf balls (literally) which would not only break the solar panel but the skylight on my camper and dent the car. Fortunately BOM issues warnings so you can try to drive away from them if you get enough notice.

Now I have the aux battery I don't actually need power (usually $5 or more cheaper a night) because they always have a free camp kitchen with power at any commercial camp site but I like using my own toaster and electric kettle rather than my gas stove.

Don't forget in Queensland there is no surf behind the barrier reef, and you want to visit in the northern hemisphere summer.
 
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