Thinking of moving to a motorhome

[DavidM]

Wait until summer when people start thinking about how little they have used their RVs and more will come on the market.

Yes the two View layouts we saw: twin beds and back slide out Queen ticked all of our boxes as well. Probably will depend on what is on the market when we get ready to buy.

As a total aside, Joan just cancelled our almost $10,000 Viking cruise from Amsterdam to Basel in early summer out of Corona virus fears. The CDC said today that Americans should prepare for "significant disruptions in their lives". It is all a bit scary and Joan is more paranoid than most I suspect.

David

[ADR]

Not sure what is driving this change, but most new Views come with DC compressor fridges, not absorption. I have extensive  history with DC compressor fridges on boats and they mostly work quite well. But the boating industry has figured out how to deal with the DC that they require and the RV industry has not.

A DC compressor fridge adds 50-100 Amp hours to your DC usage each day. That is 5-10 times what we use on our CL. So batteries and charging sources need to be better. Unfortunately the RV industry installs minimal batteries (although some offer Li Ion options for $5,000!!!). And the ubiquitous converter installed in most RVs, maybe including ours is the Progressive Dynamics 9245.

The PD9245, by all acounts is not a three step charger and due to inadequate wire size can never supply more than about 10A to your batteries. For those who dry camp with a DC compressor fridge it is essential that you upgrade your PD9245 to a real three step charger like the IOTA and triple the wire size to limit voltage drop. This is so you can recharge your batteries with a portable generator. If you don't want to do that, then increase your battery capacity, a lot.

David

PD9245 not a 3 step charger?  According to Progressive Dynamics it is-  14.4v/13.6v/13.2v  I have 2 of them. 
One was in my CL to replace the crappy WFCO  that came in it (before it failed) and the other is in my Transit van to charge and maintain my 105AH AGM battery for the house 12v system. 

I did just replace my PD9245 in the CL with a PD9160ALV since I switched to a lithium battery.  The 9160 is a fixed 14.6V since 3 step charging is not desireable for lithium.

[MitchB]

Hey David, what are you thinking for daily Amp hour usage on a View with a 12v fridge?  I'm guestimating around 70 to 75 based on average air temperatures, sound fair?   

[DavidM]

Mitch:

I have been following the Sprinters/Winnie forum and two posters said that the PD9245 is not a 3 step charger. One said that it would only charge his coach batteries at 10A because it was a fixed output voltage and Winnie installed it with 8 gauge wire which causes a large voltage drop to the batteries. So I don't have any more credible evidence than this.

Have you measured voltages rising through 14.4 at the end of its charging cycle and then dropping back to 13.2 when charged? If so it is a three step charger.

Amp hour usage is highly dependent on your life style. The compressor fridge in the new Views is rated at 3.2A DC and some have reported that it runs continuously. I can kind of believe that because 3.2A implies it is the smallest Danfoss compressor and 7 cu ft is big for that Danfoss' cooling capacity. So worst case 24*3.2=77 Ahs for the fridge but maybe less.

My dry camping usage on my 16TBS is about 10Ah daily. This is strictly lights for a couple of hours at night, a couple of tablet chargers, no fridge, no furnace, no fans and 15 minutes of water pump for the shower and a little to push and pull the slide and one burner ignition for the HW heater. So if I maintained that usage in the View I might use 87 Ahs worst case with the fridge running continuously.

But that is not likely. With a View we will probably use the TV, probably with a DVD player but no satellite dish, maybe for two hours each day or TV only with Hulu from a cell phone if 4G or better is available. That will add another 10-15 Ahs. Also there are various parasitic loads on a complex RV like the View and that may add 10 Ahs each day. So for us, worst case is about 100 Ahs daily.

That all assumes we will get a new View with the compressor fridge. That is very, very unlikely and Views built before late 2019 use absorption fridges which require just a few tenths of an amp for controls and burner ignition a couple of dozen times a day at maybe a minute each of I guess 5 amps or 5-6 amp hours total. So for an absorption fridge RV I would expect our Ah usage to be 25-30 Ahs daily.

That is more or less consistent with long term camping in a 25' fifth wheel many years ago. We had a TV and satellite dish and 140 Ahs of battery capacity and it would get down below 50% charged after being at one site for three days.

With an older View I would probably upgrade the batteries to two Trojan T-1275s for 300 Ahs. That would cover us for at least 5 days and then I would run the generator with an upgraded 75A IOTA charger to bring them back to about 90% in 2-3 hours.

If I had a new View with the compressor fridge, then I would be running the generator every day for a couple of hours to replace the 100 Ahs. That is both unpleasant from a noise standpoint and uses up propane. At half load the propane generator uses 0.6 gph so 2 hours a day will use more than a gallon so you will need to refill its 13 gallon tank every two weeks or more if you use the stove. I don't want to hunt down a propane filling station (a bottle exchange won't work) and fill up that often.

Sorry this has been so long but it has helped me to think it through and put numbers behind my thoughts.

David

[ADR]

I have been following the Sprinters/Winnie forum and two posters said that the PD9245 is not a 3 step charger. One said that it would only charge his coach batteries at 10A because it was a fixed output voltage and Winnie installed it with 8 gauge wire which causes a large voltage drop to the batteries. So I don't have any more credible evidence than this.

Have you measured voltages rising through 14.4 at the end of its charging cycle and then dropping back to 13.2 when charged? If so it is a three step charger.

Yes I have measured it- one other plus is with the Charge Wizard pendant plugged in you can override the PD preset algorythm and put it in whatever mode you want.    Sometimes when camping and we have a short generator run window I will manually force it with the Charge Wizard to go to the 14.4V bulk stage to push more amps into the battery, knowing we won't get enough charge at just the absorption voltage in the time we have to charge.

My Transit sits sometimes for days or even weeks without being driven- I leave the PD9245 plugged in 24x7 to keep the dual AGM starter batteries fully charged.   I have a Sterling battery to battery charger fed by the start batteries- it is set on voltage sense mode so when the start batteries are above somewhere around 13.5V it kicks in and charges the single 105AH house battery. 

So the start AGMs and the house AGM are never actually paralleled directly to charge, the Sterling does the stages for the house battery and the PD9245 does the same for the start batteries.

DC fridges-  I have a 18 yr old FourWheel popup truck camper that I put a DC Novakool fridge in when I finished it out, I bought it as a shell with nothing in it.   I also have a ARB portable DC fridge in the Transit.

The big plus to DC fridges- and to me this was huge- is no worrries whatsoever what angle or slope you park on.  Doesn't affect them at all.   We all know what happens to an LP fridge if left on too far off level.   


Excerpt from the PD9200 series manual>

9200 - The full rated load is available for load, battery
charging or both. When functioning as a regulated
battery charger the converter has a nominal voltage
output of 13.6 VDC for 12 volt models and 27.2 VDC
for 24 volt models. The system is designed to sense
voltage on the battery and automatically selects one
of three operating modes (normal, boost and storage)
to provide the correct charge level to the batteries.
BOOST MODE: If the converter senses that the
battery voltage has dropped below a preset level the
output voltage is increased to approximately 14.4
VDC (28.8 VDC for 24 volt models) to rapidly
recharge the battery.
NORMAL MODE: Output voltage set at
approximately 13.6 VDC (27.2 VDC for 24 volt
models).
STORAGE MODE: When the converter senses that
there has been no significant battery usage for 30
hours the output voltage is reduced to 13.2 VDC
(26.4 VDC for 24 volt models) for minimal water
usage. When in storage mode the microprocessor
automatically increases the output voltage to 14.4
VDC (28.8 DC for 24 volt models) for approximately
15 minutes every 21 hours to help prevent sulfation
of the battery plates.

[MitchB]

I'll have to try and find out exactly which fridge is being used so I can find the specific draw.  I want to be able to boondock and some generic references seem to be 5 amp draw, 50% duty cycle so that's 60 Ahrs/day. 200 watts of solar at 5 hrs of sun a day doesn't quite cover the fridge.  My overall usage in the past has been similar to yours but I don't know the parasitic draw of a View.  My gut tells me I'd go 400 Watts of solar and that would give me some wiggle room.

The other stuff about the PD 9245 wasn't my comment it was ADR's. I have PD4045 which is 3 stage.

[ADR]

The PD9245 and the PD4045 are essentially the same charger- the 9245 being a standalone unit and the 4045 is a package with fuse panels, breakers slots etc.

They have the exact same charge profile - 3 stages.

From the 4045 manual>

PD4045/60 - The full rated load is available for load, battery
charging or both. When functioning as a regulated battery
charger the converter has a nominal voltage output of 13.6
VDC. The system is designed to sense voltage on the battery
and automatically selects one of three operating modes
(normal, boost and storage) to provide the correct charge level
to the batteries.
BOOST MODE: If the converter senses that the battery
voltage has dropped below a preset level the output voltage is
increased to approximately 14.4 VDC to rapidly recharge the
battery.
NORMAL MODE: Output voltage set at approximately 13.6
VDC.
STORAGE MODE: When there has been no significant
battery usage for 30 hours the output voltage is reduced to
13.2 VDC for minimal water usage. When in storage mode,
the output voltage will periodically increase to 14.4 VDC to
help prevent sulfation of the battery plates.

[jackweathers223]

Having a good teardrop trailer covers for your motorhome is nice to have when you park it and camp to protect it from the weather. There are other accessories you can get to make your motorhome protected and more functional.

[Popup2012]

Just a interesting side note on moving to a motor home. In some of the small 2021 models, Thor is now using the 7.3L V-8 instead of the V-10.

[ADR]

Just a interesting side note on moving to a motor home. In some of the small 2021 models, Thor is now using the 7.3L V-8 instead of the V-10.

I don't think they had a choice- from what I understand the 6.8L V10 was discontinued. 

[DavidM]

Well, having started this thread in February about our quest for a new or newish motorhome to do some more extensive camping including out west, I finally pulled the trigger on a brand new short Class A motorhome with a gasoline engine, the Thor Axis 24.1 with twin aft beds like our 16TBS.

I have travelled all over the map in pursuing this quest, first considering a Mercedes Sprinter based Class B and then a C and finally settled on a short Class A. Winnebago made a short Class A based on the Mercedes chassis up until a few years go, but prices have gone through the roof for this coach with limited availability. Also I have become a little disenchanted with diesels and their potentially problematic emissions systems.

The new Thor is based on Ford's new gasoline V8 which has been on the market for trucks for at least a year. Most 2021 small gasser motorhomes are now being delivered with it.

The Thor is a bit minimalist, somewhat like LLs. It has no inverter, power management system and a simple absorption fridge, two things I can live without and the fridge I absolutely want for minimal DC usage. There is a simple manual propane valve rather than the more common propane solenoid valve that draws a half amp all of the time. It also has a gravity water fill port, something that has mostly gone away on MHs. Controls are simple switches as opposed to the new computer controlled lights, on Winnebagos. Simple is better for me. It does have an instant on hot water heater which is a real plus, I hope.

Here is a pic of the layout and an overall pic of the coach. It should arrive early next year. Oh and forgive me for buying a Thor product. I thought long and hard about that.

David

[Merlin]

Great choice, from what I see in the layout and specs. I'm sure there is enough aluminum in it that you can remain an active member of this forum! 

[DavidM]

Thanks Merlin. Yes I do plan to remain active. Many of the issues with maintaining and using a LL are common to all RVs so I will respond to questions where I have some expertise.

I am selling my 16TBS to another ACF member and I hope he will also share his experiences such as potentially upgrading to Li batteries and solar panels.

David

[stu1965]

I am selling my 16TBS to another ACF member and I hope he will also share his experiences such as potentially upgrading to Li batteries and solar panels.
David

My ears were ringing.
Add a mini split to the dreamy wishlist!

[Sylvain]

Great!  I can't wait to see how you will like it.....or not!