Generator and dimming lights

A few thoughts and suggestions. Sorry if some of this gets a bit technical. 

1) Rather than inverting 12Vdc to 115Vac for the TV for about the price of a little inverter you can get a 12V/120V dual voltage TV such as:

Mounts right up. Then sell your 115Vac TV on CL for a few bucks. Then the only remaining items in the rpod requiring 115Vac are the battery charger, microwave and the air conditioner. Obviously, you'd never run the battery charger on an inverter!

On my 179 I was able to pick off 12Vdc from the input to the audio system and run it out to a cig adapter such as:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B79F8CW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

next to the TV. Very simple to do. It also has a couple of usb power ports for our mobile phones. Then with a phone to HDMI adapter you can stream video to the TV while running audio via bluetooth to to audio system. Rpod Netflix. 

SAFETY NOTE: Pull the appropriate fuse before installing the cig adapter.

2) I did install an Easystart on my Dometic A/C unit. My Honda EU2000i starts it just fine now, but will just barely run it with no other loads. And that's at sea level, although I do have mine converted to propane (I personally hate the smell of gasoline) so that is probably reducing its output a bit. That means, no microwave and turn the breaker off to the battery charger when you're running the A/C.  I think one of the newer 2200-2400w generators plus an Easystart would be a better choice if you don't already have a genny.

3) Batteries. I would second the recommendation for installation of dual batteries, the single 100 or so amphour battery that comes with the rpod is really probably too small capacity for most folks needs. Your tongue weight will increase by about 60 lbs with two larger batteries though, so be careful if you are near your tow vehicle's tongue weight capacity. 

Two golf cart batteries (GC2 case size) fit nicely and will provide 200-220 amphours depending on which ones you get. Best to get the batteries locally to avoid shipping costs.  I personally prefer the old school flooded batteries to the newer AGM type, much less expensive, less sensitive to overcharging, and I don't mind checking the water level every month or so. 

These battery cases worked well: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00316KU6E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And you'll need a battery cable such as: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JGJGFQY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you choose to install dual batteries, do try to use 2, 6V in series rather than 2, 12V in parallel. That keeps both batteries balanced. Don't place batteries of different ages or capacities in the same system. If you really MUST use two 12V batteries in parallel, take your positive feed from one battery and the negative from the other to help keep them balanced. Also, it's much better for the batteries to be recharged every day than allowing them to be more deeply discharged over a longer period of time. Shoot for using no more than 50% of total battery capacity before recharging.

SAFETY NOTE: If you are uncomfortable handling batteries get help connecting the them.  They contain a lot of energy so accidental shorting creates very high currents and can burn you or start a fire. 

 

4) Solar. If you nearly always camp under tree canopies without direct solar access then its probably not worth bothering with, solar modules just don't perform well under these conditions. Even partial shade causes a severe reduction in performance because the cells in the modules are in series so shading one cell pretty much blocks the output of the whole module. Then you also have the issue of how to maintain battery charge over a series of cloudy days. Just get a generator and run the battery charger with it for a couple hours a day (depending on your usage) instead.  I'm speaking from 35 plus years experience as a solar and battery engineering professional.  

If you do mostly camp in direct sun and in sunny weather then by all means go for the solar installation. Keep the genny for cloudy day backup and for when you are camped under trees. 

I'd suggest you try the dual battery installation first and determine how long that lasts for you before deciding how large a solar array you need. If you install say a dual 210 amphour battery bank and it gets down to one light on your led display after about 48 hours then you would roughly need about 200 watts of PV (unshaded, summer conditions). Shut off all your loads and charging sources and wait half an hour before checking the display. If you get down to the same state of battery charge after one day then you'd need double that and half that if it takes 4 days. 

Double these estimates for late fall/winter conditions (less sun in winter of course). Also, your electrical loads will be different in cooler weather (more lighting, heater usage, probably more entertainment usage, less fan usage). 

This gets technical but you could also try to estimate your daily electrical load. In case anyone is interested, here are measured current draws from my rpod:

You would need to estimate how many hours (or fractions of an hour) each device was operating, multiply by the current draws, and add to get a 24 hour total.  As a shortcut, if you take that calculated amphour total and multiply by 3 that is roughly the size of solar array you'd need for summer unshaded conditions. For example, I use about 75 amphours/day in the summer so I'd need about 225 watts. 

For larger scale solar applications, say above 200 watts or so, consider buying one or more residential style PV modules as they are far less expensive than the RV kits.  These larger modules operate at higher voltages than the smaller (nominally 12V) modules.  You can get MPPT type charge controllers to downconvert the module voltage to charge your 12V battery bank. You will need a charge controller regardless of which module type you get anyway. I haven't yet added solar to my rig as I just got it this spring and I want to assess my fall and winter usage, so I don't have any specific recommendations for solar installation hardware yet. 

5) Inverters.  If you get the 12V TV then probably the only item you would be running with an inverter would be the microwave.  Forget about running the air conditioner on batteries and solar. You would likely need at least a 2kW inverter for the microwave, I haven't tested it. Has anyone?

So far, I just run my genny when I want to use the microwave. 

6) Fans. I got a couple of these: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003SS62PS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They plug into a cig lighter socket and mount with clamps so you can move them around as needed. Get a single to dual lighter splitter like this:

 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072KDR63B/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 in case you want to run the fans and TV at the same time. 

Hope this helps.