I want to build a slide in truck camper or a Very small camper to mount on a flat bed trailer that I tow my RamCharger on.
How small is small? Our 15ft truck camper has a reverse cycle AC, 255Litre fridge, electric HWS, induction hotplates and (of course) an espresso machine with grinder
We don't carry a generator and rely on solar / alternator charging only. We squeezed 1200W of solar on the roof of the camper and use 400W of portable flexible panels when we're parked in the shade or need to supplement the main panels. Battery wise we have 300Ah @ 24v of Lithium batteries which is more than enough to run the AC all night.
AC: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 2kw inverter split system that draws between 170 - 350W , our average consumption is around 200W on 36c days.
Fridge: 255 Litre samsung inverter fridge , average draw is 23W
If you don't have a lot of roof space for solar there are a few neat ideas i've seen such as Peter Manin's excellent :
(more detail at
http://www.manins.net.au/motorhome/solar.html)
Or you could do what we've done which is mount the panels 100mm off the roof of the camper which provides excellent insulation as well as allowing an additional set of panels to be installed underneath using lockable drawer slides which you could deploy when parked. We haven't had the need to do this yet but its nice to know we could double our solar capacity if required in the future.
I think there are 4 key areas to address for an all electric RV -
1. First ensure the camper is well insulated to minimise the energy required to heat or cool the unit
2. Use the most energy efficient appliances you can afford
3. Generate as much power as you can with the limited space available (we're using LG Neons, 19% efficient, much higher than any 12v "rv" panels)
4. Efficiently store that energy for later use
Its not easy but if you address those 4 issues you can build an all electric rv that does what you want.
