Louie,

Here's our experience. We have 4 batteries. We also have 2 - 2000i Honda generators that can be hooked up parallel to provide enough power to run our air conditioner (A/C) and other heavy load appliances if needed.

If you don't need A/C and only need power to run the microwave or coffe pot, then a 2000 watt generator would provide enough power plus you can use it to charge your batteries. A Honda 2000i will cost about $900 - $1100 depending on where you buy it and your negotiating skills.

With 4 batteries we can go for about 5 days if we are real conservative with power use. We use lanterns and flashlights for lighting and use the water pump sparingly. Mostly we use a one gallon jug for water needs and refill it. We use a very small TV/VCR combo and watch one movie per night. We do have a 3000 watt inverter so we can use the microwave for cooking if needed. But most cooking while boondocking is on the stove, oven or BBQ grill.

If we use power as normal, we can get by for a couple of days with the 4 batteries.

By using one of the 2000 watt generators we can go for about 2 weeks before we need to break camp and go dump the holding tanks and refill the fresh water.

One of the 2000 watt generators will run all day on a single tank of gas.

The solar chargers are nice but won't build up the charge fast enough to replace any heavy power use like a typical night of lights, TV, microwave and computer use.

My best guess was that he meant 4 6-volts batteries. 2 pairs would be configured in series to produce 12 volt power and then those 2 pair would be connected in parallel with the final result of 12V power and lots of amp hours (AH).

I  was expecting Jack to list his website here, but I guess he missed this since it wasn't in the Boondocking and Solar area - http://jackdanmayer.com/rv_electrical_and_solar.htm .  It should help you understand the subjects.  Another useful site is http://www.amsolar.com/education.html. 

-- Edited by bjoyce on Tuesday 19th of April 2011 06:22:25 PM

Nothing wrong with 4x12-volt batteries. As long as the batteries are of good quality. Iwould not use starting batteries in this application, but you can find heavier deeper-cycle batteries that are 12 volts.