Number of Batteries for Jayco

[Girlpowered]

What size battery bank is appropriate for a Jayco SLX 184bs? We have tried calling the local RV dealer/ service center and Jayco and neither will give us an answer on how many batteries we can hook up to the camper. We are trying to put together a system that is duel purpose - provide 12 VDC for lights and a fan in our building and power the camper.

 

[John Frum]

Hi @Girlpowered welcome to the forum.
Can you please provide a link to your Jayco SLX?

 

[Girlpowered]

Thanks. Are you looking for information on the electrical system of the Jayco? If I find a manual link, I'll post it.

 

[John Frum]

Thanks. Are you looking for information on the electrical system of the Jayco? If I find a manual link, I'll post it.

That would help.
General information on the product would also help.

 

[Girlpowered]

Download Brochure | Jayco, Inc.

Jayco builds high-quality RVs, camping trailers, travel trailers, fifth wheels, motorhomes and toy haulers.

www.jayco.com

The manual is found at the link above. The electrical system is section 6, page 79. Our unit is pretty simplistic where there are no dimmer switches, command center, etc. The 12 VDC powers the slide out, awning, lights, radio, LP detector, furnace/ heater, and water pump - in all about 40 to 50 amps if all used at once; this is just a rough estimate.

 

[John Frum]

Download Brochure | Jayco, Inc.

Jayco builds high-quality RVs, camping trailers, travel trailers, fifth wheels, motorhomes and toy haulers.

www.jayco.com

The manual is found at the link above. The electrical system is section 6, page 79. Our unit is pretty simplistic where there are no dimmer switches, command center, etc. The 12 VDC powers the slide out, awning, lights, radio, LP detector, furnace/ heater, and water pump - in all about 40 to 50 amps if all used at once; this is just a rough estimate.

Do you currently have a battery that can run everything?
Do you have a converter?

 

[John Frum]

Do you currently have a battery that can run everything?
Do you have a converter?

Download Brochure | Jayco, Inc.

Jayco builds high-quality RVs, camping trailers, travel trailers, fifth wheels, motorhomes and toy haulers.

www.jayco.com

The manual is found at the link above. The electrical system is section 6, page 79. Our unit is pretty simplistic where there are no dimmer switches, command center, etc. The 12 VDC powers the slide out, awning, lights, radio, LP detector, furnace/ heater, and water pump - in all about 40 to 50 amps if all used at once; this is just a rough estimate.

Link requires credentials.

 

[Girlpowered]

Do you currently have a battery that can run everything?
Do you have a converter?

Yes. It can run everything, but gets drained fast in the fall when running the heater. It has a converter/ charger. Which is only useful when we run the generator to charge the battery, hence, the desire to connect a larger bank of batteries.

 

[John Frum]

Yes. It can run everything, but gets drained fast in the fall when running the heater. It has a converter/ charger. Which is only useful when we run the generator to charge the battery, hence, the desire to connect a larger bank of batteries.

Ok will assume the existing battery is some flavour of lead acid and 12 volts and that it is located on the trailer tongue.
Can you look at it and find the amp hour rating?

 

[John Frum]

Yes. It can run everything, but gets drained fast in the fall when running the heater. It has a converter/ charger. Which is only useful when we run the generator to charge the battery, hence, the desire to connect a larger bank of batteries.

Can you please get the exact make and model of the converter and post a picture of the ac/dc panel?

 

[Sojourner1]

What size battery bank is appropriate for a Jayco SLX 184bs? We have tried calling the local RV dealer/ service center and Jayco and neither will give us an answer on how many batteries we can hook up to the camper. We are trying to put together a system that is duel purpose - provide 12 VDC for lights and a fan in our building and power the camper.

You need to figure out your daily power consumption. Are you wanting to power 120v items and if so you need a INVERTER a CONVERTER won't do it.

If you're just wanting 12v (slide out, awning, lights, radio, LP detector, furnace/ heater, water pump and the fridge power board is 12v). Most rvs are basically the same for these items, the difference come when you run your furnace...warmer the rig the furnace runs more consuming more power. As a reference my Suburban 35k btu furnace uses 8a while running so if it were to run for 60 minutes that consumes 8ah. Time your furnace to see what it cycles in an hour, colder it is outside more it runs. Multiple by the hours it will run.

While running your generator the converter is powering the rv and charging the batteries how much depends on the size of generator and what your running in the rv.

Once you figure out the daily consumption you just need to dump that amount of charge back. This is were solar helps, some charging is better than no charging and could help extend the time that the generator is needed.

 

[Girlpowered]

Ok will assume the existing battery is some flavour of lead acid and 12 volts and that it is located on the trailer tongue.
Can you look at it and find the amp hour rating?

I can check it out this weekend. It is an hour north of me.

 

[Girlpowered]

Can you please get the exact make and model of the converter and post a picture of the ac/dc panel?

I can get that this weekend too.

 

[cwstnsko]

The vast majority of travel trailers sold are not configured with boondocking in mind. When you talk about the trailer being an hour north, you go there on the weekends, and you have another building which has no power, it sounds like you are boondocking
The 12V system in most trailers is designed to support an overnight stop, or maybe a weekend, if it's not too cold and you are frugal with your use of 12V. Based on the smallish size of your trailer, I'd expect it likely came with a single Group 24 battery that probably has a 70-75ah rating, giving you roughly 36ah to work with, if the battery starts out FULLY charged and you haven't degraded the battery by dropping below 50% too often. Trailers rarely come with a good shunt-based battery monitor to allow you to know when the battery is truly fully charged, or when you are approaching the 50% mark where battery health starts to be affected. From the description in the manual, it sounds like Jayco used variety of converters, one of which was the Progressive Dynamics 92xx series. Since your trailer is on the small side, it would likely have come with a relatively low amp converter, so there is a low likelihood that you are reaching a full charge using the generator, unless you are running it most of the day.
You don't mention solar, but since you are asking questions here, I suspect it is part of the plan.

 

[Girlpowered]

Can you please get the exact make and model of the converter and post a picture of the ac/dc panel?

 

[Girlpowered]

Ok will assume the existing battery is some flavour of lead acid and 12 volts and that it is located on the trailer tongue.
Can you look at it and find the amp hour rating?

 

[Girlpowered]

Couldn't really find the ah on the battery. I'll have to look it up.

 

[Girlpowered]

The vast majority of travel trailers sold are not configured with boondocking in mind. When you talk about the trailer being an hour north, you go there on the weekends, and you have another building which has no power, it sounds like you are boondocking
The 12V system in most trailers is designed to support an overnight stop, or maybe a weekend, if it's not too cold and you are frugal with your use of 12V. Based on the smallish size of your trailer, I'd expect it likely came with a single Group 24 battery that probably has a 70-75ah rating, giving you roughly 36ah to work with, if the battery starts out FULLY charged and you haven't degraded the battery by dropping below 50% too often. Trailers rarely come with a good shunt-based battery monitor to allow you to know when the battery is truly fully charged, or when you are approaching the 50% mark where battery health starts to be affected. From the description in the manual, it sounds like Jayco used variety of converters, one of which was the Progressive Dynamics 92xx series. Since your trailer is on the small side, it would likely have come with a relatively low amp converter, so there is a low likelihood that you are reaching a full charge using the generator, unless you are running it most of the day.
You don't mention solar, but since you are asking questions here, I suspect it is part of the plan.

The intention is to go solar, but we are trying to work up to it slowly by starting with an appropriate bank for the building and camper. The camper does travel to other campsites, but stays at our property most of the time.

 

[John Frum]

The picture is too dark to for me to see decently.
For the alternating current side, I see a 30 amp main breaker with branch circuits for air conditioning, microwave, converter and refrigerator.
Its possible to run all the ac stuff off of a battery bank(except the converter) via an inverter but its going to take a very big inverter and a huge battery bank.
I also see a fairly sizeable dc panel but I can't make out any details
As far as the battery I can see its lead acid and its doesn't even have an amp hour rating that I can see.
Sorry I can't tell from the information supplied how much power you require.
Do you wish to run the AC stuff off of battery or just the dc stuff?
Will you ever need the capability to connect to shore power or a generator?

 

[John Frum]

Battery is 80 amp hours of which you can only really use half
I 100 amp hour battleborn lifepo4 battery is $950USD and you can use 100% of it.
That won't even begin to run the AC stuff but it will cover the DC and give you over twice the capacity you have.