Do I Need A Solar Panel?

What size battery do you have?
I've been in upper 30s at night since I got SW so the Alde runs quite a bit thru the night. I have just a Group 24 and if it's fully charged at sundown I'll wake up to anywhere between 11.9 and 12.2 with fridge and Alde.

From my experience, with the fridge on battery while traveling, it maintains the charge you started out with - but that depends on your TV and how much your alternator puts out. I live off solar and my 24 does fine but at some point I'll change it out for a 27 so I have some margin.

It's pretty tough to know for sure, but you will likely need a solar panel or to increase your battery capacity. I think you battery is a 100ah. That might last you a couple lf days if you are really judicious, but I think it will be tough.
I upgrade my battery to 2 golf cart batteries (6v.) It gives me a lot more leeway, at 225ah.
You will likely get decent sun in March at Big Bend. Solar in the northeast, right now, is pretty weak.

PXLated said:

First off - Jenn's setup is totally overkill for me even though I do a lot of boondocking. I have 120 watt solar and the whimp battery and do fine as long as there is solar - Even overcast. The only way I'd ever do a setup like hers (sorry Jenn) is if I wanted to spend a month in isolation - I don't - The only thing I'd chage in my setup is a group 27 :-)
As far as propane usage - 7-10 days a tank when running the fridge and the Alde running at night.
I do have a generator for bad days but one could just hit a campgrounds with hookups on those days.

100ah is fine if you don't really want to use the lights, fan, pump, TV, or radio or charge your electronics.

In all seriousness, if you don't have solar, a 100ah battery isn't going to you much extended dry camping. You will need to look at either solar, a different battery, or generator.

Just to be clear - I rarely hit 11.9, that's worse case where the Alde is running almost constantly all night. I'm usually sitting at 12.2 with the Alde heating, fridge on propane and the two back lights running till midnight. No multimedia other than my iPad. - Charging all my gizmos during the day.
Should add - This is over 15 months of daily use. I could probably kill my battery every 6 months and still come out cheaper than you two - Mash2/Jenn :-)

Jenn - How much were your batteries and that whole setup? My battery cost me nothing extra, came with the T@B :-) -- Say nothing of all the time I saved by buying the Zamp and just plugging it in :-)

Ok stupid solar/shore power story of the day..... tl;dr (skip to last 3 lines)

There I wuz (all beginning stories have to start with those words).... camping wif my other tiny trailer peeps at a wonderful state campground with shore power, waterway views, fishing, kayaking, pot luck, good food, and tall tales around the campfires.

This fabbo Airstream Bambi owner had shown me the camper-TV cord "short" you can do (non-blinking) that would turn on your running lights of your camper instead of using that overly-bright white LED porch light that not only beckons you home at night, but calls out to every moth, insect, arthropod within a half mile as well. Well, I went to my camper-TV 'lectrical cord and used a sold piece of insulated wire (ain't dumb.. no shocking event happened) to short the two female inputs. In mah excitement to connect the 2nd of the two inputs, I brushed against the metal of one of the other inputs. Coupla sparks.. nuthin major. Running lights were on and beautiful, not overpowering to neighbors and quite pleasant. I did NOT unplug the shorting wire during the day. Was just a 3 day weekend, and pffft, I was on 30A shore power.

The weekend weather was cold, rainy and nasty, but spirits were high (some were drinking said spirits) and much fun was had by all. End of the gathering: drove home (less than 2 hrs), parked (I call it "threading the needle" as I have to back thru 2 fence posts while missing my Harley Softail), hauled in dirty clothes bag, grabbed backpack and went inside. 

Next day after work, I went to make sure all was spotless and to replenish some staples in mah sweet T@B. Automatically checked the voltmeter installed in the cabinet under the sink. 12.1v??? Wha?? 

Guess what those widdle bitty sparks did at the beginning of the weekend? Blew the converter's inline-fuse on the battery PLUS the one to the solar charge controller. Oops.

What didn't happen - the trailer converter was fine - it just never charged the battery during the weekend, the inside electronics were protected, the solar controller (100W flex panel - permanent install) was protected, the permanently installed voltmeter runs on a dedicated fused line and wasn't affected, I didn't drop the battery below D.E.A.D. and was slightly surprised I didn't run the battery any lower - battery specs - 80 Ahr (20 hrs), group 24.

Moral of the story - don't randomly hit other metal objects when shorting those two inputs on your trailer-TV cord to light up your way! I also took a bit of "wite out" and marked which inputs on the camper-TV cord to short if I want to do that again and promised mahself I will be extra careful while connecting the two inputs.

When all is said and done, always double-check to see if your battery is charging whether via solar, generator or shore power. Make sure said battery is healthy, add distilled water if it's flooded even if it's a little thirsty, and don't make things spark unnecessarily (carry extra fuses - for HHGTTG fans, remember a towel too).

@Ratkity, use a fuse on the 7-pin connector. It's safer than bare wire. Just a 7.5 or 5 amp fuse like the 30 amp battery fuse. It will work just fine.

We just got our 120W Zamp setup this week, so I haven't had a chance to really try it out yet (suffering the cloudy, snowy El Nino weather here in New Mexico...still haven't been able to move my brand new baby because of all the snow from a storm 2 weeks ago).   Purchased the panels through Amazon, got them fast (~1 week) and I thought at a pretty reasonable price. It is nice to have everything self-contained - no worries about leaving anything home. 

JiroTX - Not sure :-) ... If you left the lights on, it'd probably stay at 12.2 for a long time. For instance, I start at sundown at 12.8 with Alde, fridge and lights on. It will gradually end up at 12.2 till I shut off the lights at midnight and it will usually still be 12.2 when I get up - if the Alde has to run alot, it may drop to 11.9 in the early morning hours but seems to stay there till the sun comes up again.

Jiro, the one thing about the battery monitors that plug in is that they do not give you the actual state of charge. They give you the state of charge, plus or minus what you are adding or using. To get an accurate read, you have to disconnect anything that is drawing or adding power to the battery. By turning everything off and removing anything that is charging the battery, you can get a pretty good idea.

Based on you using the fridge 24 hours a day and the Alde for 8 hours a say, here is what you can expect:
  

Assuming these numbers ring accurate for you, you could expect about 3 days. 3 might be a stretch because it is unlikely you actually reach 100 ah when you recharge as battery life diminishes. I like to account for a 10% loss as a buffer.

I am not saying you should do this, but if you have a 225ah battery, you could probably go 5-7 days. This should give you an idea of how amp hours plays its part in the equation.