Believe it or not, many of the modern things in life are designed for 12v living, or thereabouts; Your mobile phone, tablet, laptop, all those rechargeable batteries for the camcorder, digital camera and emergency battery pack. It actually makes you think why not have a 12v circuit at home.
So living of 12v should be easy. Well first things first, you are going to have to buy some new bits. Those 240v transformers are all no good, unless you are plugged into a mains supply at a campsite, or aire with electricity.
First the existing infrastructure; we have a 12v van battery, a 12v habitation battery, to which is connected one 100w PV panel mounted to the roof. We have also tried to use a little electricity as possible and have therefore changed all the bulbs to LED’s.
LINK to sustainable Dora
We installed 4 extra cigarette lighter sockets in the rear, for some reason two of these are permanently on, and the other two only when you turn on the 12v in the living compartment, this is actually useful, so we can charge them while driving.
We wished we had installed an extra socket in the front cab, we only have one. We also have a USB socket on the cab stereo, which has proved very useful.
We did not take an inverter, and we are glad we didn’t. We also do not have a generator and have managed without, even through the darkest months.
Now it is possible to get 12volt DC adapters for just about all the normal IT type kit you are going to want, the trouble is they are all made in China and some are not very good quality. We did not have the time to test run everything out, in anger, watch them fail and send them back for a refund. When they have been crap, we have just had to make do and mend, or scrap….So if you have the time test them out before you go, we wish we did.
So lets go through appliances one by one;
Our laptops
These are drawing about 20 watts, and if we were to run them both off of the habitation battery Dora starts to grumble after about three hours.We bought two DC adapters as we wanted to run both at once. These have been great, although the plug on Susana’s is a little loose so you have to keep an eye on it, otherwise it does not recharge properly. As these have the largest draw on power, when we are driving we tend to plug one in the front, off of the van battery and one in the back, off of the habitation battery. This works fine and they will recharge to 100% after about two hours of driving.
They seem to cover most laptops at similar prices.
If it is a sunny day, and we are off for a walk, we will plug them both in the back, and let the sun and the PV do the work. Once charged, Dora will then get to work recharging the habitation battery. If cloudy, we don’t risk this.
You may also want to think about extra batteries. I have an old Dell M4300 and it the battery will last about one and a half to two hours, so we bought a second cheap battery that replaces the CD/DVD player which has doubled this and was only €45, it won’t last long, it is a cheap imitation, but hopefully it will last the year.
Digital camera
This one is old skool and annoying because it is quite ancient we cannot charge it via the laptop USB port, only via a 12v cigarette lighter socket. The only one we could find was by Expro with very dodgy connections, so we have to hold it to get it to charge, most annoying. The batteries they supplied have also been not very reliable, Duracell were better, but more expensive, the original by canon, ridiculous. We did not have the time to try them out properly, and so have had to live with them, which we just about do. I would like to force this apart and try and mend it, but it would be difficult to replace on the road. You pay for for what you get!
So don’t forget the spare batteries.
Our GoPro charger
First the camera can be plugged into any standard USB port, so will charge off of a laptop. We also got two spare batteries which came with a separate charger.The batteries are no where near as good as the original GoPro one, but they suffice as a back up. The charger also has a cigarette lighter socket, and can run off of 240v.
We also bought some extra mounts and a headband for the GoPro.
Obviously the originals are much more expensive.
Our mobile phones
These also use USB, so are easy.
The mobiles are the only devices we also have 240v sockets for when we are plugged into the Aires, very rarely.
Our spare battery pack
This has been brilliant. Only €20 and we can plug in two devices to USB sockets. It just takes a long time to recharge. Maybe a more expensive one would be quicker, with more capacity, but to be honest this is for emergency and has charged the mobiles 4 times over off a single charge.
Mobile car charger
We have dual USB cigarette lighter converter. We originally had two from Belkin, not very reliable and didn’t work after a couple of weeks, and no way of getting a replacement! The latest was from Carrefour and is holding up.
Cigarette lighter socket splitter
We also had a three way splitter which we got from Lidl, but this started giving off smoke so we ditched it, and obviously didn’t have the receipt of the means to get it replaced, and a six euros it wasn’t worth it. We are looking for a replacement though.
Most of this we purchased from our friends at amazon but also off of eBay or on the road.
Cloudy and we don’t move, we don’t write the blog, all energy goes into the LED’s for light, but mainly the pump for shower! Simple as that really.
This hasn’t really happened on many occasions.
The other kit; mobiles, cameras tend to fit around the laptops or go tandem, they take such a small charge, it makes no difference.
We have only reached a depleted supply on a couple of occasions, not bad for over six months and we are now with an extra hour of daylight, whatever that means, but we are heading for sunnier climes and summer, so everything looking rosy on the 12v front…..touch fake laminate. timber.
GDR
