Starcraft RV Owners Forum

You will need a solar panel or panels and a charge controller. They have a kit that plugs in or you can build your own system. There are tons of youtube videos that explain things .... just search "rv solar" you'll be flooded

We don't understand alot about the solar ready on the 2017 Autumn Ridge. Would we have to buy anything else to hook up besides a solar panel to help recharge the battery?

Thanks,
Sandy

But yet, the batteries in my Coleman lanterns will light them for weeks on end. Go figure.

I believe the cd/radio takes power even thought it's turned off. My trailer has a disconnect switch. Does yours? This ensures that there is no draw on the house batteries. I actually have two house batteries on the tongue of my trailer. I believe the first owner added the second one, although he bought the trailer new in 2016. I tried the solar battery charger but I didn't buy a large enough one I believe. It was only a 45watt. A 100+ watt would do the job much more efficiently. Let us know what you finally decide to do.

That is very difficult to calculate from RV user to user. CCA isn't relevant. Amp hours is relevant. So let's say you have a 60 amp hour battery and you use an appliance that draws 1amp at 12 VDC .... you could theoretically run tat appliance for 60 hours. There are technical reasons that this isn't always true.

I believe your battery is around 55 or so amp hours and your co detector is around 100 milli amps, so 0.1 amp. You also have standby current in your electrical box. I measured my trailer at 300 ma or 0.3 amps with nothing running. 0.3 amps for 3.3 hours is 1 amp hour. 180 hours to a totally dead battery. (Theoretically) 7 to 8 days. If you plan on using even LED lights over your four days, you really do need to consider recharging.

I use 200 watts of solar to recharge.

We are planning on doing some dry camping for about 4 nights. We had been camping for a long weekend, with hookups, so the battery was fully charged. Within a weeks time, with nothing on, except the CO2 detector, the battery was totally dead. The camper is brand new. We just took the battery out and had it tested and it is fine. Interstate 450 CCA. On our old camper, we could dry camp for 4 days without the battery being dead. Should be buy a spare battery, or should we buy a solar panel to try and recharge it some? Very confused as to why it went down so quick.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sandy