Thanks mate.
The two massive 6V batteries that I mentioned aren't in my hands yet. I have
been considering getting them to maintain a good long lasting power source
for the van. But, now I think it may be an overkill and a pretty heavy job
as well.
You need to look at your power requirements and work them out.
Refridgerator
Lighting
The dooles like mobile phones, torches, the radio(s)(AM/FM/UHF, etc)
(Where did they all come from)
The laptop
The 12 volt TV.
Medical machines.
Even stuff like fans on diesel/gas space heater and/or 12V electric
blanket. Sigh, there is even 12v hair dryers.
When it comes to stuff like aircon, then you need to run a generator of
sufficent size to run it. Add in the microwave to that as well.
Over here, camp sites can be divided into those that allow generators,
where mos caavans go and thse that don't, where most campers go. man
people don't like one destroying the peace and quiet.
I think I am better off with a 125Ah sealed deep cycle battery and may be a
backup one. I reckon it's better to rely on a small generator rather than
carrying massive heavy batteries like I was planning to do.
What do you think about that?
Batteries and a solar panels are a basic way to go here if you have
light demands like a refridgerator, lighting amd the doodles.. Most
times you will have no problems if you have adequately specced the
batteries to give you a couple of day's requirements.
It is when you are camped for the week, then you can run into problems
from it being heavily overcast all week. I have something like the honda
generator on my plans as a emergency back up.
I have also gone for four days capacity, so that effectively means that
at worst case I only loose the peace and quiet for one day in four.
If you are travelling every day/few days, like doing the big loop, that
C-tek D250S that was linked is the way to go as it tops up your caravan
battery from the solar panels when you're stopped or from the car
alternator when you are travelling. you need an auto isolator that
switches the car feed in after the car alternator has recharged your
starter battery.
OTOH, some places here, it just means that instead of stopping in the
bush camps, you pay for a powered site overnight and charge your
batteries up then.
I'll point out that I'm talking from the Australian perspective where we
have 30 million population spread over an area the size of
Europe/Mainland USA, but mostly in a few big cities and little facilties
in between.
