A very important part about taking a road trip is ensuring that your battery is all geared up for the trip. With the swift improvements in caravan technology and engines, battery packs have come a long way since 30 years ago.
It has now become a more convenient way of providing energy instead of lugging around heavy inverters or LED's for your trips. But with improvements in solar technologies, choosing a battery comes with a wide range of options to pick from.
A basic caravan battery set up will include :
- 2 x 120 amp batteries
- 2 x 150 watt solar panels
- A 40 amp AC charger
This allows charging of basic items and electronics in the camper, and can be charged using a 240 volt cable through your caravan or a 12 volt solar panel that can be placed on the top.
Anything lower than this capacity is not recommended since that would be the most cost efficient option for a camper caravan. A battery of this size should be able to charge a camper comfortably with the availability of the solar panels to recharge the source.
How do you calculate the power requirement of your camper?
An average camper caravan battery (Generally about 12V) is generally measured in amp-hours (ah).
Depending on the rating of your battery you will be able to run your appliances depending on their voltage for certain amounts of time.
For example, if your battery had a rating of 200ah, it would in theory be able to run a 1 amp appliance for 200 hours, a 5 amp appliance for 40 hours, and so on and so forth.
But the rating comes with its limitations and can affect how and how much of the battery you use.
The voltage obviously begins to wear with usage, thereby reducing the amount you will be able to use it when compared to when it’s new. And once it reaches a minimum of 30% capacity, it tends to not charge due to low voltage. This is why we recommend to use it till about 50% of it’s capacity to maintain the voltage and overall functioning of the battery. This means that every rating that you see on a battery can be taken at half its value to make sure you always have enough voltage to charge you items on your caravan.
Keeping this information in mind, we hope you will be able to choose your next caravan battery with ease. For more information on what kind of battery you can pick for your next trip, you can check our website for premier quality battery options. For any queries, do not hesitate to get in touch and let us know if we can help you with the process. You can email us at info@growenergy.com.au or give us a call at 03 8820 8133.
