Long road travels power source: generator or battery?

[BlackRockArt]

Hi y'all, if you were to travel on the road for an extended period of time, staying in the remote wildness for a few days, would you take a gasoline powered generator, or solar + Battery combo ? Such as Honda Inverter Generator, or some LiPo batteries?

I would appreciate some sights from the seasoned travellers.

Thanks in advance.

Oliver

 

[AlanLichty]

How about a generator that can charge up your LiPo and mostly run off of the LiPo? That way you only need the generator when the LiPo runs out.

When I had my RV I typically ran off of the house batteries with an inverter but had a propane generator to recharge the batteries or when I needed more juice than the batteries could deliver.

 

[JimFox]

Not a Generator. I would never bring one. They are way too loud, you need to have gasoline, it's all sorts of problems.

All you need is some battery's. I have 2 - 300 KWH, 1 - 500 KWH, and a bunch of 172 KWH that I use to power my cameras and dew heaters. The big ones are all LiPo ones.

I have a solar panel, but never use it. It takes sooooooooo long to charge up a battery. The light is never as ideal as they use for standards, so it takes a very long time.

Worse case scenerio, run your vehicle and charge up your battery's from it.

What have you been doing?

 

[BlackRockArt]

Not a Generator. I would never bring one. They are way too loud, you need to have gasoline, it's all sorts of problems.

All you need is some battery's. I have 2 - 300 KWH, 1 - 500 KWH, and a bunch of 172 KWH that I use to power my cameras and dew heaters. The big ones are all LiPo ones.

I have a solar panel, but never use it. It takes sooooooooo long to charge up a battery. The light is never as ideal as they use for standards, so it takes a very long time.

Worse case scenerio, run your vehicle and charge up your battery's from it.

What have you been doing?

Thank you Jim, that makes sense, the generators can be noisy, I will do more research on the batteries. I am planning more road trips, I will need more powers for the drones.

Oliver

 

[JimFox]

Thank you Jim, that makes sense, the generators can be noisy, I will do more research on the batteries. I am planning more road trips, I will need more powers for the drones.

Oliver

Generators are noisy, and super heavy and large. They also use gas, which means you would have to have some way to transport them outside your vehicle. You would not want to be driving and having your car filled with gasoline vapors, that would be dangerous.

Also most of us go out to nature to have some peace and quiet. I am guessing you haven't paid attention to how noisy gas generators are. You would need to bring ear plugs along to try and block their noise.


You mentioned you are "planning more road trips". Just charge your batteries for the drones/cameras from the vehicle itself while you are driving on your road trip. That's what I do.

Get this Oliver. Jackery is the default standard that Astrophotographers use at night to power their gear along with others that go off grid. You can find other brands on Amazon that can save you some money but offer the same features, if you want to save some money. Now with this one, you have to pay extra for a charging cable to charge the battery from your car. But you can then top this Jackery off while driving in case you are worried it might run out.

https://a.co/d/6gSksJS

Amazon.com : Jackery Explorer 2000 v2 Portable Power Station, 2042Wh LiFePO4 Home Backup Battery, 2200W Solar Generator, USB-C PD 100W Fast Charging for Emergencies, Power Outages, Camping(Solar Panel Optional) : Patio, Lawn & Garden

 

[AlanLichty]

My RV had a propane generator that ran off of the tank that also serviced my hot water heater, furnace, gas BBQ, and cooktop so I didn't have to carry gas cans around but I hated running it because it was so noisy. My house battery bank (separate from the engine/chassis battery) would charge from the engine while I was driving so I could usually just charge my devices from the house batteries using my inverter. If I was starting over again from scratch I would opt for lithium house batteries and solar on the roof.

There are quite a few parks that have noise restrictions and do not allow generators at night.

 

[Jeffrey]

I, too have a built out travel van with lot's of power, but for needs like yours I use a Jackery Explorer v2 and 200w foldable solar panels.

 

[JimFox]

My RV had a propane generator that ran off of the tank that also serviced my hot water heater, furnace, gas BBQ, and cooktop so I didn't have to carry gas cans around but I hated running it because it was so noisy. My house battery bank (separate from the engine/chassis battery) would charge from the engine while I was driving so I could usually just charge my devices from the house batteries using my inverter. If I was starting over again from scratch I would opt for lithium house batteries and solar on the roof.

There are quite a few parks that have noise restrictions and do not allow generators at night.

How portable would that be? I can't see installing a propane generator in a car. Car's have limited storage space as it is. And wasn't your generator technically outside the interior of the RV? It would be in a compartment that would have ventilation to the outside?

And yes, almost all parks, not even national parks have a 10pm cut off for generators.

I am not sure Oliver gave much thought when he said generator and showed a picture of a gas generator, because I don't think a person could get less practical if they tried for providing electrical power while on the road. Not when there are Jackery's, etc available readily, and even his own vehicle could charge his drone battery while he is driving for hours on the road on his road trip.

 

[AlanLichty]

My experience with charging while driving is that it's a trickle charge at best. I only mentioned the propane system as something I had that was thoroughly obnoxious to actually use. Parks won't let you use them at night for a reason and I thoroughly agree with that. I am not a fan of transporting gas cans myself. There are quite a few portable power units like the Jackery and ones from Anker that would provide plenty of juice for charging a drone. I would plug one of those into a charger socket on the vehicle while driving and charge devices from that.

 

[JimFox]

My experience with charging while driving is that it's a trickle charge at best. I only mentioned the propane system as something I had that was thoroughly obnoxious to actually use. Parks won't let you use them at night for a reason and I thoroughly agree with that. I am not a fan of transporting gas cans myself. There are quite a few portable power units like the Jackery and ones from Anker that would provide plenty of juice for charging a drone. I would plug one of those into a charger socket on the vehicle while driving and charge devices from that.

When I charge while driving I use my 110v outlet. When it's parked it puts out 100amps and while driving it's 40amps. More then enough to plug in two charging supplies to recharge my smaller batteries.

I don't have Jackeries as you are paying premium for the name. Mine are GoLabs and they were using the LiPo batteries before Jackery did.

So I have 2 - 300 Wh and 1 - 500Wh, I can use these to power my telescope at night.

For my cameras to power them all night when shooting the Milky Way, I have 4 - 172WH units from GoLabs.

But I can mix and match depending on if I am using 3 cameras or 4 cameras, and whether I need to power a Dew heater strip as well for each camera.

All of these are relatively small, and I have specific places for them to go in my truck.

I do have a 100w Solar Panel, but I have that only for emergency as I have found it charges very slow, and I am never in the same place long enough for it to actually charge what I am using up at night.

Typically I am driving 4 to 8 hours from one location to the next, and that's enough time to plug the batteries into my 110 outlet and get them charged back up for the next night.

 

[AlanLichty]

Not a lot of cars have a 110V outlet.

 

[AlanLichty]

When I charge while driving I use my 110v outlet. When it's parked it puts out 100amps and while driving it's 40amps. More then enough to plug in two charging supplies to recharge my smaller batteries.

Are you sure about the current on this circuit? 100 amps at 110V is enough to run a lot of residential electrical panels. The feed for my RV at a campground site was 30 AMPS and required a NEMA L5-30P twist lock plug with 10ga wire. A standard 14ga wire on a 110V plug running this kind of current would look like the tungsten in an incandescent light bulb.

 

[JimFox]

Are you sure about the current on this circuit? 100 amps at 110V is enough to run a lot of residential electrical panels. The feed for my RV at a campground site was 30 AMPS and required a NEMA L5-30P twist lock plug with 10ga wire. A standard 14ga wire on a 110V plug running this kind of current would look like the tungsten in an incandescent light bulb.

I am positive, it's labeled as such.

 

[JimFox]

Not a lot of cars have a 110V outlet.

Most do now a days that I see. And even if they didn't Oliver could charge his devices through the 12v plug on his car.

 

[AlanLichty]

I am positive, it's labeled as such.

Umm - I think you are misreading something: 100 amps at 120VAC is a 12,000 watt circuit. A typical house wall socket is either 15 or 20 amps.

 

[JimFox]

Umm - I think you are misreading something: 100 amps at 120VAC is a 12,000 watt circuit. A typical house wall socket is either 15 or 20 amps.

Ha ha.... okay. I am going to have to go look at see what the 110v is rated at. All I know for sure is it's enough to power up the chargers for my battery supplies.

 

[AlanLichty]

Ha ha.... okay. I am going to have to go look at see what the 110v is rated at. All I know for sure is it's enough to power up the chargers for my battery supplies.

A new 4 Runner has a 2400W 110VAC outlet in it which is still double what I was getting from the inverter I had in my RV. That's a very respectable inverter Toyota has included in those vehicles. Far more than enough to recharge your devices.