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New to caravans, Mrs has bought a small Eriba we are due to pick up soon, looking forward to trying out. Some of the festivals and breaks we go on have no hook up and we might be on site for 4 or 5 days. There's a leisure battery in it, 110ah I think, hopefully it gets charged on the run to where we are going but paranoid about flattening it when there. Mainly for lights, charging stuff, possibly fridge although I think it might work on gas too, not sure. Is it best to get a solar panel to top up charging? I don't think there's much space to roof mount it as it's a pop top and small, but maybe a way, or use one of those freestanding suitcase ones you clip on to the terminals when there?
Any tips of what's best to get, how many watts, makes, where from etc?
Cheers
Forget about using any form of electric fridge off a 110amp hour battery.
It'll likely be gas.
Your leisure battery will only charge off vehicle if you have the right towing sockets on the back of your tow car.
I have 2*100watt panels and 2 X 115 ah batteries for the usage you describe as with lead acid you only get half the stated a/h use before you start to perminantly damage it
Those are some incredible £/watt prices up there.
Huge costs.
First task is to work out the van's (and your - everyone is different) usage. Does the van currently have anyway of monitoring battery state or energy used built in. It would be good know if you have a compressor electric only fridge or a 3 way fridge that also uses gas. Not a fan of 3 way fridges as they are not very cold in hot weather but in your case prob a good thing. Also what technology are the lights - old skool halogen or LED. I suspect the former but it is often easy to convert.
I'd be aiming to get roughly a panel of 80Watts or better. On a cloudy UK day in the summer that might make about 10ah of battery capacity back. That will keep you neutral for the day if you are very sensible (and have a 3 way fridge and LED lights). On the roof would be great if you can - they do flexible panels now that can help with installation but they are not as good performing for the area cover in comparison to the rigid monocrystalline ones. A suitcase job has the advantage of being able to be propped at a better angle to the sun than strapped to the roof (they work best perpendicular to the sun so a flat roof is a compromise) but that only hold good as long as they are not in shadow when solar panel's ability falls off a cliff. Easy to keep in direct view of the sun on the roof. Solar panels have a charge controller between them and the panel - aim to get a more recent mppt rather than pwm technology one as they are now pretty cheap.
edit - and agreed, crazy prices above.
If your fridge can run on gas then don't run it on electricity off the battery. They are woefully inefficient when running on electricity.
If it's a DC compressor fridge then it can be run off a battery.
However 110ah is a bit too small to run a fridge off. You'll be taking it way down overnight.
We spent 18m living in a converted bus in NZ with only solar power (and gas for cooking), no alternator charging.
We went for 150ah of lithium (LiFePO4), in simple terms these have twice the capacity of a lead acid battery.
We had 2x270w panels fixed to the roof.
Personally it annoyed me to see caravans and motorhomes costing many times what ours did with a poxy 100w panel on the roof and a generator running or the engine idling.
We have a 360 watt panel on the roof of our camper which charges 2 x 105 ah AGM deep cycle batteries. Fridge/freezer runs off gas and heating off diesel. Off grid works fine for as long as we want.
As above its annoying especially at races when people are running engines and generators last thing at night and from the early hours of the morning and being gassed with exhaust fumes at the same time.
It also keeps the van battery topped up.
Have a look on here
https://www.photonicuniverse.com/en/catalog/list/category/dual-battery-kits
We have a compressor fridge that runs solely off a 110ah battery, along with some LED lights and the pump for the sink. We get about three days out of the battery before the charge light shows amber, turning the fridge off at night (cos otherwise it hums right next to our heads when we're in bed).
Did a long weekend away with my lads earlier this year.
Van has 110ah battery. All LCD lights. Was cold so was running the heating on gas with its 12v fan all weekend. Fridge on gas too. Needle barely moved.
I keep the battery on a C-Tek conditioner when not using the van. I’d highly recommend one.
Gas fridge works absolutely fine in hot weather, you can add a 12v fan from a PC to blow across the heat exchanger that makes it work a bit better but even in France we’ve not needed to.
The 12v feed to the fridge while towing will just maintain the tamp at best, it won’t cool it any further.
Your lights are going to be, what, 5A at most if they're LEDs. Add another amp for charging phones, plus a bit for luck and you're still going to get those four days using lights for 2 hours/day before the battery is half discharged.
If you want solar, our flat 120W solar panel gives us 4A on a sunny day, 0.5A on a cloudy day, almost nothing in winter. We got it from Photonics Universe but their current stock is better - and more expensive - than ours, you can still find old stock on Amazon. Prices do seem to vary wildly.
If fitting is too much a faff there are usually "we fit same day" sellers at caravan shows.
Instead of charging from the car, charge battery at home from the mains (cable out the window works for us), gas for the fridge, care on everything else.
Thanks for the tips and advice, picking up tomorrow so will check out exact spec for lights and type of fridge. Depending what the score is we will obviously fully charge it from home before any trip and then maybe get a 100w panel as a top up. Thanks again.
I always plug fridge in at home on max the day before we leave. It stays cool enough for beer and milk for a few days like that with a few cool box blocks. Battery seems to not do much with fridge but the gas works well
We got an Eriba last year , continental spec so no on board battery , currently sic on tour in France, so you must check carefully how to connect a solar charger, the “bip” is the exact rival controller in an Eriba - they are fragile and need care/knowledge- there is lots on info on the eribafolk website
As we have no onboard battery but do have 13 pin electrics on the van I have made up a dummy socket that allows me to power the lights and water pumps off grid with a modern compact jump pack - this will do for a couple of days as all lights converted to led the first thing that should be done as the old halogen lights eat power and heat the van - fridge will be a 3 way dometic ours works well on hookup or gas - never use on 12v . To be honest we always have an electric hookup it’s not like a camper van where you are more likely to park up off a site. Worth downloading the Eriba manuals available online which will explain the electrics properly - easy to tow as they are thin and light - make sure you have around 75kg nose weight on the hitch for safe handling - never less than 50kg pay attention to that and make sure the jockey wheel is locked up and cannot wind down on its own.
Have fun
I don’t know the specifics of our solar panel but since we got our camper van last December (with a good sized solar panel on the roof) we have never had to plug into the mains. Given that we live in Scotland and have had the fridge on most of that time I’ve been hugely impressed. Don’t know the details but could probably find out if you’re interested.
Update: picked it up last night, it seems a well designed small van. Fridge is 3 way for battery, mains hook up & gas. Lights are just 3 small interior ones which look like small strip bathroom types, haven't looked at bulbs yet. The leisure battery I think is knackered, the previous owner said he never used it as always on hook up. I put a meter on and showing 9v, I have put it on charge now but if he hadn't used it at all in years I suspect it's dud and won't take or hold a charge so will have to get another. I looked up the price of the Lithium ones, bloody hell..I guess will need to stick to a conventional lead acid one at 1/10 the cost. I think with a new battery (if present one is kaput) and a top up 100w solar panel I think we'll be fine as usage won't be OTT. Thanks for advice so far.
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Don’t waste your time on that battery, it’s dead.
110mah leisure battery to replace it, standard lead acid type is fine. AGM were trendy for a bit but need specific charging circuit etc and a lot are shying away from them now.