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lostagain View Drop Down
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Joined: 06 Sep 2016
Location: Quaker Hill, CT
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Posts: 2595 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: New owner
    Posted: 29 Mar 2019 at 10:23am
Simple solution:  When in transit run the fridge on gas.  If you have concerns about fueling and tunnels, just turn it off for those things.  There is plenty of residual cold to keep thing preserved until you turn your gas back on.  Likely, you're going to drain your trailer battery while driving, even with the high output alternator for the very reason offgrid suggested.  The conductors to your trailer plug aren't really heavy enough to carry the current you need for that distance.  So you'll be supplying part of the energy to run your fridge from your TV and part from the trailer batteries, all at a net loss for your trailer batteries.  
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GlueGuy View Drop Down
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Posts: 2707 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Mar 2019 at 11:19am
Our alternator puts out 250 amps, so we are not worried about it. We have never run down either batteries when we tow with the fridge in 12V mode.
bp
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noatakme View Drop Down
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Posts: 18 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Mar 2019 at 12:11pm
Originally posted by offgrid

You are going to be limited by the resistance of the wiring back to the trailer. Alternators are set up to keep the tow vehicle battery at 14.4V max, so if your current alternator already does that while your towing (which is likely) then changing to a higher capacity alternator won't help you. 

If you wanted to route separate heavy cabling to the trailer battery from the tow vehicle (when I say heavy I'm taking about maybe 2/0 conductors) then yes the larger alt could improve things.  But you are likely to find you're just fine with what you already have. 


That's a relief. I believe I am going to go with 2 golf cart batteries. 6 volt wired in series. I would like to be able to boondock for 1 or 2 nights. It would be just my wife and myself. Probably just in the heat of summer for my wife. We will see. Our first trip is going to be at French Creek State Park in PA. Full hook ups.  We will drive from there an back to Philly to see the Cherry blossoms. I still haven't run any of the systems yet. I'll have to learn how to do that.

Paul
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StephenH View Drop Down
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Joined: 29 Nov 2015
Location: Wake Forest, NC
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Posts: 6422 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Mar 2019 at 12:56pm
I use dual 6V batteries and have since we bought out RPod 179 in December, 2015. We can get multiple nights boondocking. Now, if you are thinking that the batteries will run the AC, forget about it. That isn't going to happen unless you have a massive solar bank and lots of LiFePo4 batteries or a good generator. However, you can run the lights, water pump, and Fantastic/MaxxAir fan on battery for multiple nights if you plan on running the refrigerator and water heater on propane. The furnace can also be run, but since it draws more, you would not get as many nights with it running. Also, we found that dual 6V batteries will also not power the refrigerator overnight so plan on using propane for it if you don't have shore power.

Full hook-ups will allow you to run everything on electricity with multiple items at the same time such as the AC and Convection Microwave or water heater.
StephenH
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Mar 2019 at 12:57pm
For 1 or 2 nights you’ll be more than fine with 2 GC2 batteries.
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