How the right lithium battery and charger setup gives you back the freedom you drove all the way out there to find.
There's a moment every camper knows. You've found the perfect spot - the kind of place that takes hours to reach, where the silence is thick and the sky goes all the way to the ground. You don't want to leave. But the fridge is pulling hard, the battery is dropping, and you're doing the maths on whether you've got enough charge to get through another night.
So you start the engine.
It's one of the most common and most avoidable frustrations in Australian off-grid travel. And with fuel prices sitting at levels that make every litre a decision - especially in regional and remote Australia where it isn't always guaranteed to be available at the next stop - running your vehicle or generator just to maintain camp power is becoming an expense that's hard to ignore.
The good news is there's a smarter way. And it starts with understanding what's actually draining your setup.
The real cost of running camp on fuel
Most people calculate their fuel costs around driving distance. What they don't factor in is the fuel burned at camp - idling to charge, running a generator overnight, doing unnecessary loops to get charge back into a flat battery.
On a two-week touring trip, that idle time adds up fast. At today's fuel prices, running your engine for an hour to charge your batteries costs you real money - every single day. Multiply that across a longer trip and you've spent hundreds of dollars just keeping the lights on. That's before you factor in the noise, the fumes, and the fact that you've just disturbed every other camper within earshot of your perfect remote campsite.
There's also the regional fuel uncertainty factor. Across remote Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia, fuel availability between stops is not something you can always count on. Every litre you don't burn at camp is a litre in reserve for the road.
What the right setup actually looks like
The combination that changes everything for off-grid campers is straightforward: a quality lithium battery, a DC-DC charger for when you're driving, and a solar setup for when you're not.
The battery: A Custom Lithium LiFePO4 battery gives you genuine usable capacity - up to 100% of its rated amp-hours, compared to the 50% you realistically get from AGM. That means a 100Ah Custom Lithium battery delivers 100Ah of actual, usable power. Your compressor fridge runs all night. Your lights, water pump and devices draw freely. You wake up having used real capacity from a battery that weighs half what an equivalent AGM does.
And because Custom Lithium batteries are proudly Australian-made and engineered specifically for Australian conditions - the heat, the corrugations, the dust, the sustained high-draw loads - they perform where cheap imported alternatives fall short.
The DC-DC charger: Every time you drive - even short distances between campsites - a quality DC-DC charger is putting charge back into your house battery from your alternator. The Redarc BCDC1225D is our go-to recommendation for most 4WD and caravan setups. It charges efficiently, isolates your starter battery, and handles solar input simultaneously so you're running one clean system rather than multiple competing ones. For larger setups, the Redarc Manager30 steps up the capacity and handles higher solar input.
The solar: This is where the fuel saving becomes real. A solar setup managed through a Victron SmartSolar MPPT controller charges your battery through the day - quietly, automatically, for free - while you're sitting in a camp chair doing exactly what you came out there to do. The Victron 100/30 and 100/50 MPPT units are our recommendation for most touring rigs. Pair them with the Victron Connect app and you can monitor your entire system in real time from your phone.
Combined, this setup means that on a typical Australian touring day - some driving, some stationary camp time with reasonable solar - you arrive at camp with a charged battery, you use it overnight, and by mid-morning the solar has it back. Without touching the ignition. Without burning a drop of fuel you didn't need to burn.
The maths that matter
Once a proper lithium and solar setup is installed, the running cost is effectively zero. No ongoing fuel for charging. No generator maintenance. No noise. And the initial investment pays itself back faster than most people expect - particularly as fuel prices continue to rise.
More importantly, it removes the constraint that cuts most camping trips shorter than they should be. When your power setup handles itself, your only reason to leave is that you want to. Not that you have to.
That's what Custom Lithium is built for. Not just a battery upgrade - a genuine shift in how long you get to stay out there, how far you can confidently go, and how much you spend getting there and back.
Camp more. Drive less. Stay longer.
Fuel prices are outside your control. Your power setup isn't.
If you're ready to stop cutting trips short and start staying as long as you want, talk to the Custom Lithium team. Tell us your setup - your vehicle, your loads, how you camp - and we'll give you a straight answer on exactly what you need.
No upsell. Just the right gear for the adventures you actually take.
Proudly Australian made. Built for the way Australians camp.