Shakedown weekend questions

Hello all-

Welcome Laureensnyder.
#1 you are correct.  I wouldn't have known that until I hooked up to our homes water supply to find out.  We normally bookdock or camp where water hook-up in not an option so our water pump has gotten a good work out over the past 6 years.
#2 Do not know as I do not have a shut off switch on my batteries.  They do charge as you drive along and the charging unit in the pod will charge them while hooked to shore power.
#3 Being basic I look at the idiot panel on my 177, when it goes to 1/3 SOC I change out my 12v battery to the other 12v battery.  They are 6 years old and still performing well.  I am sure someone else who has a voltmeter will chime in and give you the specifics you are requesting.  In fact if you do a search, that topic has been addressed numerous times with well thought out
answers.
#4 Just run your truck, pod doesn't know if you are in gear or park.
#5 Always run your fridge on propane!  Your battery will go to toast in 8 hours or less running on batteries.  I experimented once using one of my deep cycle 12 v batteries and it lasted for just over 4 hours before being nearly totally dead.
#6 We have twin 20 lb cylinders.  A 20 lb. cylinder lasts a long time as the fridge and hw heater are stingy users.  If you use the furnace a lot, then you will find yourself replacing more often.  If camping in really cold weather 40 degrees and less the tank may only last 10 days or so depending on how warm you keep your pod inside.  As for us and we do a lot of camping in the shoulder months of April-May and September-October we normally replace one 20 lb tank/year.
#7 I always run my fridge on propane except when I am pre-cooling it before a trip and am hooked up to my house for power.  I allow 24 hours for the fridge to cool significantly before putting food in that has come out of my home's refrigerator.  Again, there are experts on this forum that will be able to tell you from their experiences what to expect if you are traveling with the fridge on battery power.   With the draw the fridge takes on the battery I would expect minimal change after traveling for only 1.5 hours.

Welcome to the pod world!

There are some vehicles which can supply sufficient power to both charge the batteries and run the refrigerator on 12V. However, they seem to be in the minority. Unfortunately, you can't take someone else's experience with a different vehicle and apply it to yours. I learned that the Escape we had would not supply sufficient power. I have not tried with the Frontier we now have. I need to find a meter that can measure not just voltage, but current to see if sufficient power can be supplied before I will try running the refrigerator on 12V. Since Propane works great, I would much rather arrive at the campsite with fully-charged batteries. It is a learning experience for all of us. It is better to learn early before you arrive for a several-days of dry camping only to find out your batteries were not charged because you tried to run the refrigerator on 12V while en route.

Originally posted by Laureensnyder 7- I have a 2016 Ford F-150 with the deluxe tow package.  It doesn't seem like my batteries are recharging when I tow. If I'm running the fridge, will it not be noticeable? How long does it take to see a significant increase? Will they still charge if they are shut off? I'm thinking an hour and  A half tow wasn't long enough to notice an increase.

We have a 2015 F-150. There is a built-in relay that turns on/off trailer power with the ignition. There is nothing else to do except add the trailer brake controller. The battery will need to be connected to charge though. The 2015+ F-150 has plenty of juice to charge the battery if needed. That year (or newer) has a 200+ amp alternator, so it should do very well. A lot of people swear on using propane as much as possible. I'm not hep to that, as I consider it dangerous. YMMV. We use battery when on the road, propane when boondocking, and AC when we have shore power.