All electric coaches & dry camping

i have a 40' CC Magna with 2 8d's for starting and 4 AGM's for the coach (those guys are $700 each and are good for 5 years+) 12.5 generator

all electric with three a/c's.  the original owner was a cooking fanatic so they added a propane stove and oven, i have only filled the tank once in 5 years (guess you can tell im not a cook fanatic)  big residential fridge.  I love my fridge and constant ice in the desert, a few 1/2 gallon ice-creams that stay firm and cold!  it recovers nicely when something warm goes in there like lasagna that i could not finish--this could never happen with a propane fridge, if im not using the AC then  i start my genny in the morning while prepping for the morning run and have it run an hour. then a good 2 hours before i go to bed but those gennys are really quiet

 
oh and i have a Prosine 3000 inverter. it  can run microwave and real home unit vacuum cleaner with no genny.   so I'm really not "all electric"  if i was CC would have put in 2 3000 watt units like the Infinity units have and then you can run even the roof AC off the inverters--thats a bit much IMHO

 
My CC is all electric, 6-Lifeline 8D’s, two inverters. I have 35 amps of solar that helps but not near enough. The 120 volt draw can be 10 times in DC amps, I usually have a 60 amp draw on the batteries because of the refrigerator. 
I usually run the generator a few hours in the morning and last till the next morning. 
Generator usually runs more for the AC units in the evening and other 120 V needs. 
You will be fine, no big deal and way better than a propane refrigerator. 

 
Rampage42 said:
My CC is all electric, 6-Lifeline 8D’s, two inverters. I have 35 amps of solar that helps but not near enough. The 120 volt draw can will be 10 times in DC amps, I usually have a 60 amp draw on the batteries because of the refrigerator. 
I usually run the generator a few hours in the morning and last till the next morning. 
Generator usually runs more for the AC units in the evening and other 120 V needs. 
You will be fine, no big deal and way better than a propane refrigerator. 
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Your refer shouldn't run all the time, unless the door is open more than closed..

 
Lots of things you can do.  A simple timer on the fridge to turn off at night will keep the drain minimized to daylight hours.  Its just a math equation.  You have to put more battery power into the tank than you consume.

Lead Acid, AGM, etc are horrible batteries.  Heavy and take HOURS to fully charge past 80%.  Move over to lifepo4 when those die and you can charge as fast as your charger will allow.

 
EmpirE231 said:
This doesn’t have any crazy 8D batteries. But it has 4 AGM 6volts dedicated with its own inverter for the fridge.... and another 4 AGM 6v batteries with dedicated inverter for the rest of the coach. 
 

not sure how long it takes to charge up all 8 of them with an onan 8k genset. 
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It's not the genset that charges the batteries, it's the battery charger. There might be a charger built into the inverter also, I'm not familiar with what you have.

 
Kraut_n_Rice said:
Your refer shouldn't run all the time, unless the door is open more than closed..
Click to expand...
I just switched to a residential fridge, let it run for 7 days. Of those 168 hrs plugged in, it ran 13 hrs.

The new refrigerators are extremely efficient. 

 
Looney Duner said:
I just switched to a residential fridge, let it run for 7 days. Of those 168 hrs plugged in, it ran 13 hrs.

The new refrigerators are extremely efficient. 
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How often did you open the doors and replace food/frozen items?

 
I noticed the same with a cheapo mini fridge that i had plugged into a watt meter for several weeks. It cycled a lot less than i expected. Even thought about putting in my trailer to run off solar and an inverter. Save on propane cost since the solar and batteries are just sitting there. Might do that next summer when the absorption fridge shows its weakness. 

 
I have a 2008 monaco with residential fridge, and older one and it SUCKS the power. I have 8 6v batteries. I added 1240 watts of solar in glamis since its winter figure I get 1/2 of the 1240 watts, I can go a day or 2 without the genny, usually the 2nd day my coffee maker sucks me down to the auto gen start. BUT usually every night I run it for the microwave or other reasons, but if it's just me, no women, ill go almost 48 hours. if I shut my fridge off my solar will fully charge my batteries, withe the fridge on it will get me to 13.2 ish everyday. I am sure a better fridge would help, and better batteries like lithium, but thats expensive and diesel for a few hours a day is only about 10 bucks.

 
what about the electric stoves? do those use a lot of juice?

 
EmpirE231 said:
what about the electric stoves? do those use a lot of juice?
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Yes.  You need to run the Gen for the induction cooktop, IIRC and to use the induction oven portion of the microwave/oven.  Microwave alone is fine off inverter in mine. 

-TJ
 

 
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