New Battery suggestions

[nibbs]

I've been researching a variety of battery setups for our intech pursue camper and am at a bit of an impasse of what I should do...

We use this camper 50/50 off gird or with shore power. The majority of off grid are shorter trips (2-3 days) with the stock 80ah battery. I do have a small generator that I have used to just recharge the stock battery on these trips as we're primarily powering a dometic fridge and a few LED lights. It would be nice to not have to feel I need/should bring the generator on shorter trips. I always bring it on longer off grid trips.

I toyed with a smaller solar system in the past, and bought the generator instead as the primary times I'm off grid is in the winter months at higher latitudes throughout the north of the country.

Trailer when stored is plugged into shore power.

I've generally got a buy once cry once attitude so as long as the cost factor is justified. (I'm not going to set up a lithium battery bank when I can just bring the generator I have). Where I'm struggling is to go with a dual 6V setup factoring in the potential life cycle of the batteries- or a longer amp hour 12V single... and is it worth going to an AMG?

thanks in advance for the input and suggestions.

 

[dreadlocks]

Grab a pair of GC2's from your local Costco/Sams Club, you'll get ~230AH which will run a dc fridge + led lighting w/out shore power or solar for 4-6 days easy peasy.

AGM's are a waste of money IMO, tho I'd love an AMG if I could afford one.

 

[Buddha.]

Go with the golf cart batteries if you have room. I got mine from batteries plus.
Eight volt golf cart batteries exist, make sure you get six volt.

 

[luthj]

Agree with dreadlocks. For the money and your usage, going with the GC2 batteries in the flooded duracell/deka brand will provide the best value. If you are camping in cold weather, make sure your charger is temperature compensated. Otherwise your charging will be much slower and incomplete.

GC2s flooded will provide 2-3x the cycles of a "deep cycle" battery from a big box store.

 

[nibbs]

Thanks all- Seemed to be a very popular option going simple with GC2's across all the other threads if they can fit (which I easily can), and it was where I was leaning... but what do I know?

 

[luthj]

I won't track down the links, but several users have tested and compared MFG ratings. There is a reason the golf carts used the flooded GC2 or similar formats. They simply provide more cycles per dollar by a significant margin. MaineSail (marinehowto.com) has a great article comparing various lead batteries, and these golf cart batteries are a fantastic value and simply crush the similarly priced competition. It makes sense cause they produce millions of them every year.

 

[dreadlocks]

There's two philosophies to Overlanding power banks.. the first is cheap/simple/disposable, people who do this for recreation should stick to this strategy.. your not full timing it, your not babysitting it, your trying to spend the time you got doing other things than worry about power.. recreational users almost always abuse batteries to death instead of cycling em to death, so just go cheap because paying more money is not gong to give you any extra seasons w/em.. don't just needlessly increase your maintenance costs because you want bragging rights.

The second is "Investing" in a top end bank, and once you have a bunch of money wrapped up into em you invest more into taking good care of em and keeping you from abusing em.. these systems get coddled, and significantly increase maintenance costs, this strategy IMO is for full timers who are going to get hundreds of cycles a year, are always around to keep an eye on things, can take advantage of the benefits the high end bank provides regularly, and end up in much worse situations when their bank craps out, like being in a 3rd world country... with TLC these guys can get banks to last a decade or two, so in the long run it can start to bring the financial disparity between these two philosophies closer together.

Judging by your introduction, your are square and firmly in the first strategy, especially since you don't venture too far away from shore power.. and w/the payload capacity to fit a couple GC2's its a no brainer.

 

[nibbs]

perfect, and thanks. Yep - I'll hardly be worried about power as the longest period of time I'll be set up would be a week or so; and on a trip like that, I'd have the generator as well as truck power while towing for days prior/after.

 

[john61ct]

The best value by far is Duracell (actually Deka/East Penn) FLA deep cycle GC batteries, around $200 per pair.

Available from BatteriesPlus or Sam's Club, Deka-labeled same batts also sold at Lowes.

Trojan, U.S. Battery, Crown, Superior all great as well, just not quite as good value $ / Ah / year.

 

[dreadlocks]

Towing is really going to just run your fridge while in tow, its not really going to charge a bank of this size back up appreciably.. it would be a small trickle and with the fridge running it'd take eons of driving.

Wire up a 20A-30A onboard multi-stage charger/maintainer so when you do run your genset you get the most out of it and shortest runtimes.. sounds like you are 4 seasoning it, so check levels at least 4 times a year and give em an equalize charge when at home periodically throughout the year (before any big trips) with battery compartment vented for safety.. leave it stored w/a float charge, and check charge/resting voltages every once and a while to access the health of the charger and the bank.

A good battery monitor and a whole system low voltage disconnect also go a long ways in helping reduce casual abuse and will pay for themselves if you can get 2x the seasons outta your bank.

 

[luthj]

There is a few rules for proper care/feeding of a flooded lead bank. If you can post up the charger type, how you plan to charge/use in detail etc. We can then provide feedback if you need to make tweaks. The biggest factor is making sure the battery gets a full charge when you get home. That means 8 hours at absorb voltage after a week of partial cycling. Maybe longer in cold temps. Temp compensation and a good float charge to keep them topped off as well.

 

[nibbs]

Thanks all- I've been doing some research into how far I wanna take this; I had started to go down that rabbit hole when thinking about solar; but scrapped that and put the money towards the 'lil honda generator. Since that time- the few times I needed 120v for something quickly; I've just used a small inverter either powered from the 12V trailer, or from the truck with extension cord.

I can wire up 12v stuff, and work on 120V systems... crossing the bridge between is where I've taken a more plug and play approach as the uses have been minimal. In the very limited research I did; I found others replacing their converter panels and whatnot- more so to work with lithium battery set ups. From the charger standpoint, I had researched more from the solar conversion side; but see/have heard of a few options such as those from ctek/NOCO/minn-kota. I'm sure there are others...

Forgive the ignorance, but for my situation as simple as plugging the unit in and connecting it to the battery(ies)? I could easily wire a 120v plug to my battery compartment off the existing system. I've attached the basic electrical schematic.

As all have mentioned and suggested (thank you for that); the ideal situation would be not only be able to run longer amp hours (easy), but when plugged in, especially for minimal time; recharge much more efficiently.

 

[dreadlocks]

Ah you got the intech, I'm 90% sure this is what you got for a power center: https://www.progressivedyn.com/rv/p...-power-converter-with-built-in-charge-wizard/

which, for the most part is adequate for your day to day needs charging w/your genset, plug-n-play.. no need to rewire it... you got a 30A multi-stage charger already, not the greatest, no temp compensation for example, but it will do the job w/GC2's pretty nicely.. If you want to upgrade later to a better charger its pretty easy to just unwire the built in converter so it dont do anything anymore.. it will have its own AC breaker, so just unwire it there and hardwire your upgraded charger up in its place.

A Low voltage disconnect like a Victron Battery Protect is a little tricky with this panel, if you wire it up between the battery and the panel the charge current will go through it backwards.. which is bad.. You'd have to modify it to run the 12v outside the box and through the LVD the correct way.

 

[Rbertalotto]

I'm using a 100Ah AGM deep cycle battery from Amazon that I paid $159....Been working fantastic. Just never discharge below 50% and it will last thousands of charge cycles. Zero maintenance and no explosive gassing. I charge with 120W EcoWorthy portable panels that Amazon had for under $200. When towing I have a Renogy 40A DC to DC charger wired into the electrical system of my car.
If there is no sun, and I need to charge the battery, I run the car for 30 minutes and the battery is back up to service level. I no longer bring a generator with me. Not needed any longer.

All of this stuff was prohibitively expensive just a couple years ago. The prices have now come crashing down

You can read all about all of this on my web site... www.rvbprecision.com

 

[nibbs]

Yes, it’s a progressive dynamics - however they switched the model I believe to the 4100 series... my inTech is a few years old. I’d have to double back and check- as well as check those old posts... I don’t recall if it were just a lithium battery charging issue and I’m good to go- or if I have an older version all together.

Thanks again all for all the help!


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