Battery life expectation

Kentsb · August 2020

I arrived at my campsite around 1:30 in the afternoon. Battery charge showed full charge. Good sun available for solar. Panel showed getting 57 watts. We got back at 6 from a hike and the meter showed battery at 1/3 fair. All i am running is a small 12v cooler that was cold from being on 110 all last night and 12v in the car while driving to the campsite. Along with the 12 v tab frig 2021.. The meter now shows E low at 8:30. Maybe my dealer gave me an ineffective battery or? Other posts people have said they get two days while boon docking. We shall see as I am in this campsite for another 36 hours. Hopefully tomorrows sun will get me through. Thoughts from everyone will be of great interest.

rfuss928 · August 2020

Your "small 12v cooler" is probably thermoelectric cooling. These are very inefficient coolers and will draw your battery down very quickly. Depending on the size, it probably draws between 3 to 7 amps continuously based on my long experience with a 40 quart Coleman model. If you need extra refrigerator capacity, you should probably consider a compressor based model like ARB, Norcold, Engel, Alpicool .....
Have fun!
Bob

Denny16 · August 2020

Also, get your battery charging ASAP, taking it down below 1/2 charge is your minimum discharge level, going past 1/3 will damage the battery, and shorten its life.
cheers

Kentsb · August 2020

Denny16 said:

Also, get your battery charging ASAP, taking it down below 1/2 charge is your minimum discharge level, going past 1/3 will damage the battery, and shorten its life.
cheers

I have the factory solar and the app that you can download for monitoring the system. It says my battery is at 11.87V. As soon as I read your email. I started my TV and disconnected the cooler. The gauge then showed 1/3 low. I am not sure I trust the meter in the 320. I can fill my fresh water tank and it will show empty later it will show 3/4 and again later show empty. If the water sensor is cheap maybe the battery sensor is also. I am starting to wonder if the marketing on the Nucamp products isn’t better than the quality of the product itself. I am having other issues that I won’t go into here.

Marceline · August 2020

Kentsb said:

Denny16 said:

Also, get your battery charging ASAP, taking it down below 1/2 charge is your minimum discharge level, going past 1/3 will damage the battery, and shorten its life.
cheers

I have the factory solar and the app that you can download for monitoring the system. It says my battery is at 11.87V. As soon as I read your email. I started my TV and disconnected the cooler. The gauge then showed 1/3 low. I am not sure I trust the meter in the 320. I can fill my fresh water tank and it will show empty later it will show 3/4 and again later show empty. If the water sensor is cheap maybe the battery sensor is also. I am starting to wonder if the marketing on the Nucamp products isn’t better than the quality of the product itself. I am having other issues that I won’t go into here.

What is the AH capacity of your battery?
As @rfuss928 says, your plugin cooler is probably a battery hog and that's not NuCamp's fault. I just checked, and as an example, a Coleman 40qt thermoelectric cooler consumes 60watts. So your plug-in cooler ate up everything your solar panel produced (57watts at midday). On top of that, the T@B refrigerator was also consuming power. Maybe something like 3ah x running 30% of each hour x 7 hours = 6.3 amps. If you had the T@B fridge set on the coldest setting (5) it would have consumed a lot more than that.
It's really important to know the capacity of your battery, the consumption of everything that's drawing from that battery, and the input from whatever power supply you have.

Sharon_is_SAM · August 2020

@Kentsb - the KIB Battery monitor can overestimate the battery state of charge. Battery management and solar take some time to learn. Do yourself a favor and buy a plug in 12v monitor from Amazon and learn to get a truer reading. True state of charge is determined after resting a battery. A battery voltage will always be lower when under load (appliances, lights, CO detector running). You will find that the roughly 100 watt panel provided with the 2021 S models only produce (under ideal conditions) 5-6 amps per hour (figure about 75 watts / 12 v = 6 amps so you were showing only 57 watts probably 4 amps/hr). Don’t be disappointed. You need to do some homework and figure it all out. We can help you along the way! Warning, solar and battery management are best learned in small bites. I would suggest experimenting with solar at home to learn the limits😀

Battery State of Charge chart

pthomas745 · August 2020

Have a look at the cooler and tell us how many watts it is rated to use. You can make calculations from that about how much it is drawing.

Battery measurements are an art to themselves. You cannot discover the state of charge of a battery while power is being drawn from it. You cannot see the proper state of charge while power is being added to it. Your KIB monitor readings while the battery is being drawn down by whatever is running off the battery are always going to be low. In some cases, with a big draw, the battery will show that 11.8 number you saw.

What you want to measure is a "rested" battery, with no draws, no power going to it. The best way will be with the battery off and the measurement taken from the battery. Short of that, try turning as much as you can off inside the trailer, waiting for 15 minutes or more, and then see what your battery reading says.

Your Victron app will show the variances of the battery voltage between a rested and non rested battery. Compared to the KIB monitor, the app should be your go-to voltage reading. Try this yourself: have a look at the voltage reading of the battery from the app. Turn your fridge on, and watch the voltage drop. Wait a few minutes and turn the fridge off, and watch the voltage stabilize.

Kentsb · August 2020

I did not mean to imply that Nucamp is at fault for my battery being dead. That is definitely mine. I do feel that Nucamp should not provide a metering system that has no credibility. I appreciate everyone’s help here to guide me through the learning process. There is much to learn and understand about a RV trailer. I will strive to do better.

VictoriaP · August 2020

Aside from what others have said, you’ll need to know if your tow vehicle actually charges your trailer battery. Some don’t, as many modern alternators are sized to only charge the vehicle battery. Your battery may already be drained when you arrive at camp.

The metering system provided on your 320 is an industry standard, and it’s basically adequate for most people because many only camp with hookups. Those who boondock tend to upgrade a number of things to suit their camping style, including better battery monitoring and much bigger battery setups than the stock battery the dealer provides. Often boondockers add additional solar panels too, because while 100 watts or so is plenty in the desert Southwest, it may be totally inadequate up North. There are also several parasitic draws on your battery, things that draw power even when not in use, such as the USB outlets, TV, and stereo. Many of us have added switches to cut these draws and that’s something you may want to do too.

If you’ve never had any RV, you have a steeper learning curve than some, and immediately boondocking with a brand new trailer is the single hardest way to scale that hill. That’s why we generally recommend starting out with a few days of camping in your driveway or very close to home to look for any issues a dealer may need to fix—EVERY camper, regardless of brand, can have problems both large and small even when brand new, that’s the nature of complex systems. And as these rigs are basically rolling earthquakes traveling at freeway speeds, different things can and will go wrong at times, it’s the nature of RVing. Taking your first real trip locally and with full hookups allows you to master the systems and your vehicle/trailer combo while having help nearby if needed.

Since you’re already on the road, you may want to stop in town and find an auto parts store. They can test your battery to make sure there’s nothing wrong there (again, things do fail even right off the shelf), and they should have a plug in monitor of the type Sharon_is_SAM recommended. They may also be able to help you figure out whether your vehicle is charging your trailer battery when towing. If it isn’t, you may want to seek a full hookup site for an overnight or two to get that battery up to a full charge. The longer it’s drained to that level, the more likely you’ll damage it.

Good luck! The first trip is always a bit of a challenge.

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