Using EcoFlo Lithium APU to power 2023 View RV boondocking

[MuleTrainWm]

Has anyone tried to use an EcoFlo River 2 Pro power unit to boondock? I have a 2023 Winnie View 24V. I can plug it in to house current 120v AC and it will power the Xantrex inverter/converter to charge batteries, and low power items. I bought a lithium battery APU that outputs 110v AC but when I plug in the shore power using a 30amp to 20amp 110v converter plug, the Xantrex stays on 12v and doesn't seem to like the EcoFlo River 2 Pro as an APU. Could this be a sine wave issue or is there a setting I need to manually set? Ideas?

I need to be able to boon doc overnight and run the gas heater/blowers in the NC mountains is why this is important. Not sure if the coach batteries will run al night with the fridge and heater going. Specs on the EcoFlo are as follows:

Capacity 716Wh; AC Output 120V 50Hz/60Hz, 800W (Surge 1600W) Pure sine wave.

 

[jwcolby54]

Has anyone tried to use an EcoFlo River 2 Pro power unit to boondock? I have a 2023 Winnie View 24V. I can plug it in to house current 120v AC and it will power the Xantrex inverter/converter to charge batteries, and low power items. I bought a lithium battery APU that outputs 110v AC but when I plug in the shore power using a 30amp to 20amp 110v converter plug, the Xantrex stays on 12v and doesn't seem to like the EcoFlo River 2 Pro as an APU. Could this be a sine wave issue or is there a setting I need to manually set? Ideas?

I need to be able to boon doc overnight and run the gas heater/blowers in the NC mountains is why this is important. Not sure if the coach batteries will run al night with the fridge and heater going. Specs on the EcoFlo are as follows:

Capacity 716Wh; AC Output 120V 50Hz/60Hz, 800W (Surge 1600W) Pure sine wave.

I doubt that unit will power your rig. 716 wh battery is about 70ah mas o menos. 800 W inverter is not sufficient for most tasks beyond tv / computers / cpap etc. You should be looking at about 1200 - 2000 WH battery and 1600 wh inverter MINIMUM. JMO of course. Understand that the RV propane heater uses the 12v battery to run the fan, and it sucks quite a bit of power (and propane for that matter)

I am using an Ecoflow Delta Pro to run my 2014 Vista 26HE off line. Even then I will be replacing the lead acid house batteries with a 280 AH battery and I will be using an alternator charger to interface the EcoFlow Pro to that battery. That Alternator charger can pull power out of the battery when needed, and send power back to the battery as needed.

I can tell you my 12v lead acid batteries just won't cut it for my needs.

 

[creativepart]

Folks buy these and expect them to perform the same as a gas generator.

The truth is, they will but for a very short time. And, then what do you recharge it with? The sun? But not at night.

It great for charging your cell phones and may even be adequate for running a CPAP at night if you use one of those. But you should not and cannot use it to recharge your RVs house batteries.

Think about what that APU is... it's a DC battery, that feeds in internal Inverter to convert DC (presumably 12vdc) into 110vac. This is not a super efficient process in the first place. Then you want to take that 110vac and connect it to your RV's Converter which then reconverts the 110vac back into 12vdc to charge 12vdc batteries. A totally wasteful cycle that will use up the batteries in your APU without effectively charging your house batteries.

You want a gas or LP power generator to do all you are asking of your little APU.

 

[fanrgs]

We have a 2020 Navion/View 24V that came from the factory with 200 watts of solar, a 30A Zamp solar controller, a 2KW Xantrex inverter/converter, and a 3KW generator. Your 2023 24V has those same features, which can power every appliance in your View except the air conditioner (only the generator can run the AC). For the same price you paid for a "solar generator", you could have purchased two LiFePO4 batteries to replace the lead-acid house batteries under the steps. For less than $200, you could get 200w of additional solar, as we have done. Between your alternator, your solar, your Li batteries, and your OEM generator, you would never need to worry about running the furnace, 12vdc fridge, Truma WH, water pump, 12v lights, device charging, etc., plus short-time uses of the 120vac convection-micro, induction cooktop, coffee maker, hair dryer, electric toothbrushes, and other misc. 120vac appliances. I know because we have done all of that while boondocking and dry camping all over the West, as we live in Colorado and snowbird in southern AZ-NM. In fact, our generator has only 18 run-hours, only one hour of which was while camping. The other 17 hours have been used for periodic exercising of the generator, a 1/2-hour at a time.

Part of the problem with using an APU to power the whole View is voltage line loss. So you are taking 12v power from the APU battery, the APU is inverting it to 120vac power, the 120vac is traveling through the 25' of 30A cable to the Xantrex, which converts part of it to charge the house batteries and run the 12vdc lights, water pump, etc., as well as powering any 120vac appliances being used. So, a wild guess is that 15-20% of the juice from the APU is wasted through line loss and heat. The heat is the reason both the Xantrex and Ecoflow have cooling fans.