-
LIBERTY COACH 58 Volt Lithium Ion run time
-
I only drive at night, in the dark, in Montana.
Later
bv
-
It all boils down to picking or specifying a coach set up best for a particular need. If a person never dry camps or tailgates not much in the way of battery power is ever needed, and in fact maybe 1/2 or 1/4 of the typical battery power might be all that is necessary.
But if dry camping with little or no use of the generator is how the coach is to be used then a lot of battery power is required.
The typical coach is a compromise. Converters do a good job of building coaches that do everything well enough for the average owner, but if someone wants to go a day or more on batteries without running the generator the coach that does that will not be the average or typical conversion.
-
Parliament’s last bus has some pretty impressive dry camping capacity. Might be worth seeing how they did it.
-
The answer to your question how they did it is simple. Two front bays were taken up by Li batteries.
The batteries as I recall used up about 50% of the floor space side to side, and were the full depth of the bay from one side of the bus to another.
-
From the pictures it looks like the remaining cubic feet of bay space in this H is roughly equal to what I have available in our XLII. Sure, no room for your mobility device and you don’t dry camp often, but if someone wants to go a bunch of days without needing to run the generator, this bus would do it.
-
Just remember, it’s a one of a kind and the original architect is no longer with us.
-
I keep trying to imagine a situation where I wanted more battery capacity than what I have because my game plan is to fire up my generator that I am dragging around with me at every possible opportunity and live like royalty being able to run everything we want on the coach all at the same time.
I suspect as my generator approaches 30,000 hours from its present 1500 I may change my opinion and may take steps to extend is life, but for the foreseeable future my electrical system works for me.
FWIW. during the approx. 29,000 miles I need to add I will use leas than 15,000 gallons and if the price with discount is $2.50 my cost will be $37,5000 which I will bet is going to cost less than Li battery replacement.
-
Jon, if you are restricted to no generator from 10 PM to 8 AM and the weather is hot and humid… an alternative to leaving might interest someone.
-
Les,
Good point.. One that I would have never even considered as we have never spent any time in a location that had restrictions on generator use. When we have dry camped there were no restrictions. Good discussion and like has been said many times it really comes down to how you are going to use your coach. if your buying a new one which it sounds like the original poster is considering then by all means get exactly what you want to use your bus the way you want. If your in the used market like I was, get the closest to what you think you need and learn for the next one… There are a lot of redundancy built into our Marathon and many other conversions… that are not utilized by many folks. When you factor of maintaining all these systems… it does beg the question does it make sense to have them all if your building in the first place. Couple of examples. I have 4 roof top air units. never other than to exercise the generator have I used more then 3… most often 2 even in teh heat of the summer keep us comfortable. I think for some folks even having a generator is a huge expense that might not be needed. Especially if they go pole to pole and never dry camp. Sure it provides so security and backup should the shore power go out… but at what cost..
Should we ever buy a new bus we will likely go the route that Bernie and Debbie went and get exactly what we wanted down to the craziest detail… for now, we are happy with what we have and our previous owner speced out.
Bill
-
Les,
Only once was I in a situation where “quiet hours” restricted my generator use, and that was during 10 days at Oshkosh in a private parking are. While days were in the 90’s it got cool at night so it wasn’t a problem shutting down after 10:00.
The reality is with almost all of us, our A/Cs make more noise outside the coach than the generator does, but I agree if someone uses their coach where quiet hours are enforced battery power becomes an important situation. I wonder what folks do if they rely on auto-start during those locations.
-
Well said, Bill !
-
Fogsrv said….”Should we ever buy a new bus we will likely go the route that Bernie and Debbie went and get exactly what we wanted down to the craziest detail..”
I’m curious to what Bernie and Deborah special ordered that was not the norm.
Safe travels,
Mark -
A train horn
-
The Parliament coach is not one of a kind tech stuff. It hs been used in the marine industry for years. First time in a coach yes, but not voodoo. It is currently at Millenium for sale. Millenium also will support the coach. Might be worth looking at.
-
One of a kind coach application, does that suit you?
Log in to reply.