Battery not holding a charge all night when boondocking

Roe

Does anyone have experience with this issue? Was told to by one person to change the current 12v battery to an AGM 12 volt. Another person suggested 2, 6 v batteries. 

Does anyone have boondocking experience with either?

pthomas745

To make any guesses here...we would need more info. What trailer and what year? What size battery (amp hours?)  What are you using in the trailer?  Which fridge?  Anything else like laptops or CPAP's?  What do you use to monitor your battery?  Solar panels?  Victron? Multimeter?

What do you mean by "not holding a charge?"  What are you measuring this with? 

Ifs:  you have a newer trailer, with a 2 way fridge, and the "stock" 80 amp hour battery...........there may not be enough amp hours in that battery to run the fridge all day without some type of backup charging: a solar panel or a generator.

It is an easy puzzle to solve, but you need to see the shape and size of the pieces!

Sharon_is_SAM

@Roe - anyone doing any significant boondocking should have a higher than stock battery capacity and solar or generator to recharge.  In general AGM batteries have advantages including more resistance to vibration, faster recharge, no maintenance relative to regular lead acid, more forgiving with depth of discharge.  They are also more expensive.  2 6 volts will give you about 230 Ah with over a 100 A before requiring recharge.  You can also get 2 6V AGMs for the best of both worlds or lithium.

Roe

2021 tab 320 cs-s boondock model with solar panels and 2 way refrigerator. Running the heat, and refrigerator during the night, not turning on any lights or the water pump. Haven’t had the battery tested yet as we’ve been on the road but by the morning the battery is too low to run anything. Hope this helps

Sharon_is_SAM

@Roe, is your solar working?  How are you monitoring the battery?  Are you camping where solar is effective?

Roe

Camper is new to us. I imagine there was a stock 12v battery installed. Camping in the southwest so plenty of sun. Is there a way to tell if the solar is working?

pthomas745

If you have installed solar: find the Victron app.  If you are using the little "lights" inside the trailer, they will mislead you.  You might be doing better than you think.  Find this app for the phone system of your choice.Let us know if you need help setting it up and "de-coding" it all.

But:  get in there (if it is convenient) and find out what battery you have.

https://www.victronenergy.com/panel-systems-remote-monitoring/victronconnect

Roe

Thanks to all for the helpful advice 

webers3

Here is my experience boondocking with stock battery, no solar. Appears something is off with your set-up.
https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/9722/battery-usage-for-what-its-worth#latest

Marceline

Roe said:

2021 tab 320 cs-s boondock model with solar panels and 2 way refrigerator. Running the heat, and refrigerator during the night, not turning on any lights or the water pump. Haven’t had the battery tested yet as we’ve been on the road but by the morning the battery is too low to run anything. Hope this helps

I have an older clamshell so it's not exactly the same but close. The older 2way fridge uses about 3.6amps while running (I think that the new one is similar). So theoretically, if the fridge is running 30% of 10hrs that could draw down your battery by about 12ah overnight. The more your compressor is running, the higher this number will be. If you have an 80ah battery you only have about 40ah of power you can use overnight. And then you would need to hope that the solar would put enough back into the battery during the day that you'd be starting the next night with 80ah. I suspect that you started with a full battery but the solar hasn't been keeping up with the fridge consumption, so your situation has gotten progressively worse. 

So here's some things to think about:
1) What is the amp hour capacity of your battery?
2) How much power can your solar panels output? Are they fully replenishing the battery during the day?
3) How much is your fridge running? What setting do you have it on? Is the ambient temp cold enough to shut it off overnight? I've found that this is very useful for figuring out the right setting for the fridge: https://amzn.to/3eOk9Xo

If you want to do a lot of boondocking and you want to run the fridge, there's a good chance that you'll need more battery capacity.

mntrails

@roe, we have a 2021 320S boondock - our first season, we’d be hard pressed to get 24 hours out of the dealer installed deep cycle battery rated at 75 ah. By the next morning, we’d often be at 12.2 or 12.1 volts. Last summer was pretty hot so the fridge would cycle frequently. Our campsites usually had a pretty good leaf canopy as well so less efficient solar. 

I upgraded to 2  6volt wet cells @215 ah this spring. I’m currently 4 days into a trip, haven’t plugged in but have been driving daily. With the fridge running as a load and a light on,  my batteries are reading 12.7v tonight. I’ve had 2 cloudy days and 2 sunny days.

As others have indicated, to really analyze things you should quantify usage and charging carefully. I’ll just offer a subjective observation that going from the stock 37.5 useable ah to 107.5 ah has given us enough overhead that worrying about the battery charge has dropped way down the list of things to keep an eye on. 

It may be worth checking your solar - the victron app is a big help and be aware that there are two fuses for the solar - one under the seat by the victron contoller and one in the tub. I’ve been very happy after upgrading and would recommend adding as much capacity as you can within the limits of cost, space, and tongue weight - good luck!

MarkAl

Yep, my experience agrees that without a daily solar recharge the 2021 cannot go much past 24 hours of using the refrigerator/lights/fan with the normal 12V 75-85 AmpHr battery the dealer puts in. If you plan to dry camp much all the above suggestions are great. Good or bad the propane refrigerator allowed easy week-end dry camps with the smaller battery. Not so now, I've got 7 continuous days in shady / probably raining camping this summer and even w/ my 3 100 watt panels - plan B I'm going to throw the smallest generator I can find in the TV to goose the battery daily if needed. By the way I like the new refrigerator - plan C is to turn if off - no problems then.

Basil48192

Agreed.  I have only 'boondock' camped twice in my 2021 T@B 320S...similarly equipped.  The first trip was in Michigan in July.  I didn't use the heat but used the fridge, water, fan and lights.  We had decent sun....but were in a partly shaded location.  My original 100 AH battery lasted about 2.5 days before hitting the 50% point.  Another trip in October required heat and was mostly overcast....this time it was under 2 days before hitting the 50% point.  Over the winter, I added two, 6V AGM's, a battery monitor and an additional suitcase solar panel (to better follow the sun).  I am headed out this weekend, so I'll let you know how it works.  

trimtab

Happened exactly like the in our 2020 version>>>>2021 tab 320 cs-s boondock model with solar panels and 2 way refrigerator. Running the heat, and refrigerator during the night, not turning on any lights or the water pump. Haven’t had the battery tested yet as we’ve been on the road but by the morning the battery is too low to run anything. Hope this helps"
I want to upgrade the battery and add one too. No space in front "bin" or whatever it is called. Ideas?

Marceline

trimtab said:

Happened exactly like the in our 2020 version>>>>2021 tab 320 cs-s boondock model with solar panels and 2 way refrigerator. Running the heat, and refrigerator during the night, not turning on any lights or the water pump. Haven’t had the battery tested yet as we’ve been on the road but by the morning the battery is too low to run anything. Hope this helps"
I want to upgrade the battery and add one too. No space in front "bin" or whatever it is called. Ideas?

If you boondock a lot, bite the bullet and go lithium.