There are 2 ways you can power your campervan and enjoy your travels; Free camping using on board 12 volt battery power and mains (240V) at camp sites.
Free camping using only 12 Volt on board battery power;all campervans and caravans have some sort or level of on board battery power based on the following. Our Toyota Granvia power system is based on an automatic charging system utilising 2 batteries, the origional engine cranking battery and a second deep cycle “house” battery. The engine and its associated systems/instruments runs normally from the cranking battery, standard on all cars, while the house battery operates your lights/appliances such as your fridge. “House” batteries or deep cycle batteries are different in that they are designed to run longer and provide more amps, usually in the range of 100 amps per hour, which allows frequent and longer heavy use with better/longer charge and usage ranges.
In order to maximise your power and hence your journey time ALWAYS plug in your vehicle to 240 Volts mains power at least 12 hours prior to heading off on your trip, this will chill your fridge down to its working temperature and fully charge your batteries so you start with 100%. On that basis you can now head off with confidence. Additionally the vehicle will, via the alternator, charge both the engine and the house batteries as you drive, this is automatic.
Lets look at a typical trip, we connect to 240 Volt mains power 12 hours prior to departure, now the fridge is cold the food is safe and we have fully charged batteries, we head off and drive to destination 1 where we free camp for one night and use lights/fridge/laptop/recharge our phone and during day 2 we explore the area, we camp for night 2 at location 2 after a 1 hour drive. The on board automatic engine charging system will replace some but perhaps not all of the power we used but we have reserves to cover that so we continue on to location 3 which was a further 1 hour drive, enjoy the sights and use similar amounts of power, camp for that night and next day head home, all covered in the house battery power reserves and small amounts of replacement as we drove/explored. Had this trip been a drive and free camp for 3 days with no recharging from the engine then we would now be low on power and need to replace/recharge either from the engine or to connect to mains power to top up our usage if we intended to stay longer.
A typical longer trip would involve some driving and therefore automatic replacement/recharging from the engine or you might as most nomads do, free camp 2 nights and camp site for 1 night using the site 240volt power to both run our vehicle and recharge our battery and at the same time top up water and allow showering and laundry if required. All country towns have a low cost “show grounds” or council RV camp site and its good to support local services and shops so here is a great chance to top up everything at a very modest cost or even free of charge (donation box) Using this method of free and site combo’s you can run for ever and not be short of power or fresh food, do lap’s of this wide brown land and see all the fabulous scenery.
The Granvia system, which is fully automatic, includes a 100amp/hr deep cycle house battery, an engine linked charging module which “see’s” if either or both batteries need toping up and an emergency low engine battery change over switch so you can start your Granvia from the house battery.
The 240 volt side of things is also automatic in that you need only connect your extension lead to a mains outlet, a safety cut out switch, just as you have at home, will ensure you never get a shock, and the on board mains charger will take over and charge both engine and house batteries. You can stay connected to mains and run off that while you are in that site. After a night connected to mains you start off the next part of your journey just as you did when you left home, fully topped up. Using this style of drive, park, and camp, free camp, your power supply and usage is almost infinite. For vehicles with higher power use or longer range free camping requirements then either a second battery or a solar panel is the answer.
Appliances; some appliances are dual voltage such as your fridge, others are only made as 240V so can only be used when you are connected to mains power, e.g. microwave. To run a 240V appliance from a 12 volt system you require to fit an invertor of a suitable strength and this will use 12 volt power at a faster rate so cutting down your storage/battery time. Most good retailers of camping gear do have 12v versions of many appliances so it would worth your while to check them out. I prefer to use my gas to boil water for tea/coffee and my BBQ for meat cooking, its both cheaper and faster.
Happy camping.
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