Nothing changes my mood more than heading to my trailer Bertha’s storage yard to fetch her for a trip to a music festival, and find the battery’s dead. For many travel trailer owners, it’s not so rare. All the lights, the slide outs, and water pump run on the battery. So much in our rigs runs on the 12v battery system that we may not think about it much if we predominantly use the camper when hooked up to shore power.
Bertha has some design flaws from the factory that speeds up our loss of battery charge. Note the singular: she currently has just the one 12V car battery that came with her when purchased. If it fails, we’re screwed. So even when I get around to fixing some components that are “always on”, Bertha still needed a good system to keep the battery charged up.
I’m not really ready to start installing a complex 6 volt battery bank solar charging system with sophisticated digital controllers. Not to mention that it will run $500 to $1,000+ and a few hours or more to install.
What steps can be taken right away to help run things in the camper on our road trips, prior to getting to a fest that may or may not have electrical hookups?
Certainly a second 12v deep cycle battery is a quick and inexpensive way to significantly increase capacity. But if your camping is largely fests that offer electric hookups, its imperative that you keep your battery up to snuff.
Currently Bertha is stored in a field with no power, so how can we keep the batteries charged? A quick and easy upgrade is the Battery Tender 15W solar panel. It’s 100% plug and play. Installation took about two minutes.
First, I secured the panel to the front of the camper above the battery with two bungeed suction cups to the fiberglass front cap. Then a quick hook up of the red clamp and black clamp to the battery and the sun is charging.
I have no doubt that this high quality panel will keep the battery in top shape. With a second battery at just over $100, and the panel also just over $100, I think it’s a reasonable amount of money for a lot of peace of mind.
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