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Subject Topic: 1st time without EHU Conway Countryman Post Reply Post New Topic
PersonBen-Countryman
via mobile 10/3/2019 at 8:14pm
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Hi all, we are the proud owners of a 1995 Conway Countryman. We have just booked our first camping trip of the year (a trip to the New Forest in May). Fortunately every time we have been away we have had EHU.

This site doesn’t have capacity to give us EHU for this trip so I’m wondering if anyone can give me advice on 12v lighting systems and possibly a solar panel to top the leisure battery up. Apart from the odd use of the water pump the 12v system will only be used for lighting for a few hours and charging 2 phones via a USB socket.

Any advice greatly appreciated on which lights to go for and solar panel recommendations.

Thank you

Ben & Georgia


Personnavver
10/3/2019 at 9:05pm
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Generally a good leisure battery will last a week or 2 with the use you require.

Do you know the Ampere Hour rating of your battery?
Is it in good condition?

Some sites offer battery charging.

LED lights will be the most energy efficient. If you have more than one light you don't need to use them all if you want to conserve power.


Personmarg6
10/3/2019 at 9:56pm
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oh you could always take the battery to the nearest garage first thing on a morning and go and collect it before they shut, wont charge you much for doing that, the other way is to connect your 12s (grey) lead to it and have the car engine running, but you will need something to press the pedal down to around 1200-1500 revs to charge it up


Personparky15
via mobile 15/3/2019 at 8:16am
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Given your battery will get a good charge on the drive there, with led lights, water pump and phone charging, I would say a 1-2 week holiday should be fine, but as others have said, depends on capacity and condition of battery.

We bought a cheap 20w solar panel just to keep our battery topped up over winter, so you could consider that. I read that a 20W panel on a big battery doesn't need a charge controller, but we got one as you can wire it in to automatically isolate the battery when it gets low, to protect it from deep discharge.


PersonVivebunny
28/3/2019 at 9:48am
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You could consider a small phone solar charger. It's about the size of a large mobile phone - but thicker and heavier. You can charge it at home fully, and then put it in the sun to top it up. With one full battery it can charge 3 phones. It's about £30-40 on amazon.

We went away for a week and drained our battery just because of phone charging - but I've got two teens!! Like has been said, the actual facilities in the van are very low power.





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PersonBede
via mobile 06/5/2019 at 7:10pm
 Location: Oxon
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What is this sorcery? It had never occurred to me that we could go somewhere without EHU and yet have electricity. This means we could go back to our favourite campsite without the teenagers rebelling!

Off to Google "leisure battery"!


PersonBen-Countryman
via mobile 06/5/2019 at 8:45pm
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Hi all,

Just thought I would update this as it’s nearly time to go away.

I have now fitted a 12v switch panel (nothing was fused previously) with 2x USB ports for phone charging (individually switched) & 5m of LED strip lighting that uses next to no power.

I have also bought a solar panel trickle charger to keep the battery topped up during the day. We also have solar panel phone cases that should help us 👍

Thanks for all your suggestions. First outing this weekend in sunny Stratford.

Ben


Personsennen26
via mobile 07/5/2019 at 8:44am
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Charge your phone from your car every time we use our car we charge our phones if needed as the solar takes a lot longer to charge. So even if only a quick trip to shops we top up our phones . As for anything else unless you watch TV all the time it should last a week.




Sennen



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