Leisure Battery Query
By Duchess on Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Posted in Beginners
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Please excuse my ignorance, but Adam was a lad when I last did any major camping and things have changed considerably.

So, we've bought our first motorhome (collect it on the 12th) and we're hoping to take it for a spin on the bank holiday weekend to make sure everything works etc. Nothing major, just down to the New Forest for a couple of nights. I can hear you all laughing now at this point as trying to find a site that has availability is proving vexing to say the least :S . Now obviously I was hoping for a fully serviced pitch somewhere so we could check out the EHU etc, but I think this is the stumbling block as I could probably find somewhere without the EHU.

My questions are:

a) how long will the leisure battery last? I would probably be using hairdryer, straighteners, laptop/kindle/phone chargers, as well as the usual stuff.

b) if the answer to a) is more than three days, does anyone know if it is permissible to just park up in the New Forest. We've been there many times and have seen "no overnight parking" etc. Ideally we would prefer a site for our first trip, but I think that might be out of the equation.

Thanks

Kate
Hi Kate,

To power and/or recharge those items you will need EHU - particularly the hairdryer and straighteners unless you have a powerful inverter which will drain whatever battery power you have pretty quickly. The other stuff will only be chargeable via your 12V system so will need the correct type of chargers for this or an inverter to charge them at mains voltage.

Generally though the length of time leisure battery supply lasts depends on various factors like the size of battery or batteries and the current draw on them, also whether there is a secondary charging system like a solar panel and then how good the weather is to make the panel effective.

As for where to stay - are you sure everywhere is full? Have you tried independant sites that come up in a Google search ie Motorhome Campsite New Forest?

If you 'wildcamp' where there are specific no overnighting signs you are likely to have a stressful first outing IMHO.

I'd suggest you keep trying to find a campsite even if you change the location just for this first time.

Hope this helps but hopefully others will have suggestions for you.
NEILMAC
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7 years ago
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Thanks very much Neil. We have finally managed to find a site in the New Forest with EHU, although not fully serviced.

As for the inverter - completely gone over my head I'm afraid so that will have to wait until we pick the van up so I can suss it out for myself. :unsure:
Duchess
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7 years ago
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Hi Duchess

An Invertor is (usually) a small box with a plug socket attached. Basically it turns battery power into mains power (12volt to 230ac) so that you can use (usually) low powered mains equipment. An invertor will drain your battery very quickly, the higher the rating the more power taken from your liesure battery. Some small capacity batteries cannot cope with the demand required by the invertor. I would consider 12volt versions of your appliances over the mains ones unless you intend to install a (very) heavy duty liesure battery. I use a 150 watt one for emergency situations but that will not run a hair dryer etc. You would require at least a 2000 for that. That would be quite a size for an invertor too.
Adam
AandM
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7 years ago
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First upgrade to consider is a bigger or a second battery.
Second upgrade is a solar panel.

As previous posts. A leisure battery is only there to power the water pump (priority)then lighting and 12 volt accessories.
An inverter big enough to run kettle/hairdrier/microwave etc (one at a time) will require at least 3 substantial batteries with a means to keep them charged.
Techno100
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7 years ago
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I have a Talisman Autosleeper motorhome. It have a 75amph batter. I never use EHU. We(a couple) run a water pump for 4 taps and a shower(washing hair for partner), a loo flush pump, 6 twin strip lights(not all at once), 22" TV with DVD (on most nights), I charge a Kindle fire HD, an ipad, 2 samsung galaxy S5 phones and my camera's heavy duty battery. I have no problems. Because the battery is topped up every time I move the motorhome. I am touring and therefore I move most days.The longest I have stopped is 2 days. I have been doing this for 13 months and never had a low battery warning light. If you are worried then try it out somewhere safe and near home. Good luck.
sman61
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7 years ago
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