I made a quick overnight trip to Delaware State Forest in PA to try out some of my newest gear. I bought an Iceco GO20 fridge, the Dr. Prepare 100 Ah DC power station, a Noco Genius 5amp charger, I made a gear loft out of a cheap harbor freight tarp and bungee balls, and I got a WaterBrick rechargeable faucet.
The hands down best addition was the power station. This thing is simple and has plenty of capacity for what I’ll be using it for. It could run the Iceco fridge for a week if it had to. I can charge my lights, phone, and fan with it. I can even charge my Surface with it for some Netflix under the stars. If I ever needed more capacity I could wire in another battery too. It’s also got a 100w solar charge port so I could add solar eventually. All-in-all it’s a great, simple, multi-use power station that doesn’t break the bank or require an electrical engineering degree to wire into the truck. Plus I can easily take it elsewhere without a hassle.
The Noco charger works off the inverter outlet in my Tacoma bed so it’s always charging while I drive (as long as I remember to hit the switch on the dash) or I can leave my truck running and charge while I’m parked. When I’m not on the road I can charge from any standard house outlet so my battery is always topped off and ready to run the fridge if I needed it during a power outage at home.
The gear loft is just a cheap 6’x8’ canvas tarp I got at harbor freight. I cut it in half, added some extra grommets, and mounted it with some bungee balls to the frame and some tie down points I got off Amazon. Great use of the vertical space for bedding. Keeps everything dry and dust free.
The faucet is a simple usb-rechargeable pump that fits on the WaterBrick containers. Simple push on/off button to dispense water. I need to figure out a better place to mount it, but it works for what I need.
I’ve got a MOLLE panel on order for the front wall of the camper. That’ll give me more options for storing things and will give me more room in the drawer to better organize things. I might even make a v2 of the drawer to better fit my gear and they way I use it. I’ll also mount the charger on the MOLLE panel and clean up my cable layout.
I’m taking 2 months of leave this summer to road trip from the east coast to MT, WA, UT, and back. I’ll put out a call for suggestions to see along the way once I get a better idea of my route, but please let me know if you have any recommendations now or want to meet up for a beer or night of camping.