Sorry to be asking what might seem obvious questions again but as I mentioned previously this is our first folding camper so everything is unknown to us, I understand the leisure battery will not power a tv, microwave or anything that you normally plug in at home so my question is will it power our mobile chargers and camper light and our outdoor revolution lumi link tube light kit. Also is it possible to say how many hours it will give if we only use it for camper lights.
I know the risk of using gas heaters whilst camping but as we hope to camp early in the season and have an old dog with arthritis we wanted to get some form of heating for the evening if it was cold when we do not have EHU available and wanted something we can attach to our spare 907 gas cylinders and wonder if anyone could advise.
I do not have a clue about batteries in case it makes a difference ours is a Powerline Leisure 678
12 v 55 Ah (C20) 470 A (EN) also says + 30 % power.
your leisure battery WILL power the likes of your tv, but you need suitable invertors to do so.
change the actual bulbs on your lighting to led ones and you really will extend the time the leisure battery makes them work
surely your folding camper has gas heating? i suggest you invest in some refillable bottles for the supply of gas, such as safefil etc, it really makes a huge difference in cost
your 55 ah battery is way to low, you need 100 ah batteries which would mean you have 50% of that available so 50 ah
oh the dog, it would be good for the dog if you got it used to wearing a jumper
The main thing to remember when running off a battery is not to use anything that has a heating element, as these are huge consumers of power. old-style light bulbs are not that much better, but LED lights are fine, and so are some small fluorescent units. There are far too many variables to say how long one will last, but using just phone-chargers, which use next to nothing, and lights will probably be ok for a couple of days if the battery is in good condition. A 55ah battery is not a very big one though, only half the size of the usual caravan battery.
I'd be very wary of using portable gas heaters near anything flammable though, but then I'm quite a cautious person. They can also give off carbon monoxide in a confined space.
Have you considered getting a suitcase style solar panel to help keep your battery topped up?
Even a 50 watt panel would help for the use you describe. A 100 watt even more so.
Sadly our camper is a 2007 due to budget and does not have a heater ☹️ we are going to change our light to LED, our dog is a large Labrador who due to his health conditions shoulder dysplasia and arthritis does not like us to lift his legs as it causes him discomfort so a jumper is not an option but thank you for your suggestions we will try to go to EHU sites as often as possible so can use electric heater but wanted an option on the rare occasion we needed it.
I am not technically minded so unsure about which solar to buy and if I needed extras to go with it but will try and have a look just worried about making a wrong purchase 😢
Basically safest to simply say a gas heater with a flame is an absolute NO NO in a confined space, as very high risk of lethal Carbon Monoxide poisoning from the combustion process! - you die without knowing anything is going wrong, as it's a colourless, odourless gas that builds up from the floor level, making you drowsy then killing you in your sleep!
There are a few CATALYTIC gas heaters available with no naked flame combustion which claim to be safe. I'd still fit a Carbon Monoxide alarm to be doubly safe!
Inverters to provide 240v power are best avoided, as inherently inefficient, and will 'waste' your precious limited battery capacity! Far better to use 12v appliances, a number of duel 12v/240v TVs available at moderate cost, look at the Cello camping range. https://celloelectronics.com/model/televisions/camping-and-caravan/
Forget any notion of heating or cooking appliance running off 12V battery, they will kill it dead in no time!
Always worth bearing in mind, with ordinary (lead acid type) leisure batteries, you only really have HALF the stated capacity available for use! If you discharge them beyond that point you risk irreversibly damage them! Also, as they get older, the effective working capacity diminishes too! A good quality battery, well looked after, may have a working life of 5 or 6 years before it's too 'worn out' to be much use. Your 55Ah battery should from a practical point of view be considered a 20Ah battery, which translates as 1A (or 12W) of power for 20 hours use, or 20A (or 240W) of power for 1 hour use. Of course, once the battery is discharged, it NEEDS recharging near immediately, because it will risk damage being left for very long in a discharged state! All 'technobabble' to you I'm sure, but may just give some insight into how marginal a small battery is in practical terms if your sole electrical power. For instance, your battery would run my 12v TV for maybe 7-8 Hours total, 10 hours at max! - and that's the TV alone, you will need lights too!
Probably best to keep your battery power for lights and phone charges only if going 'off grid'! You could buy a bigger battery and a solar panel, and a 12v TV, but suspect that may impact your budget too much! ... then again EHU only pitches resolve all your problems!
A 1kw heater uses 4 amps at 240 volt. At 12 volts it will use 20 times as many amps so 80 amps. Your battery will probably not last 15 minutes at that rate.
You must use EHU with an electric heater.
Solar is an option but in winter the output is about a 10th of the watt rating. A 100 watt panel will only make about 10 watts in winter. Lower power in the sun and a shorter day are the reason. So siolar only suitable for charging the battery enough to support very low use such as LED lights, pump and phone charging etc.
A folding camper really has no insulation compared to a caravan.
Thanks for your comments, we only intend to camp spring to September but as we have encountered many cold evenings thought it wise to investigate heating on the rare occasion we are on site where EHU is not available and presume solar panel will not give enough power for a electric heater so back to the drawing board 🫣
If wild camping or rally - ing. you could use a portable suitcase genny. Likes of an Honda 2.2
Will do all you ask of it.
However campsites might not allow.
As well is two words!
How does a sage know everything about everything? or does he? or does he just think he does?
Remember, if you buy something you bought it, not brought it.
We only ever go to sites with EHU as both our fridge and water heater are mains-electric only. Ours is a 32 year old caravan and we have a 110ah battery, and going off-grid for more than overnight we regard as a no-no. Also, our caravan was packed up for winter at the end of September and won't get used again until the weather seriously warms up in spring. If it does! Our first outing this year was in early July and that was cold and wet!
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Topic: Battery Life And Gas Heater Advice Needed
via mobile 18/11/2024 at 12:18pm
