RV Battery Types: An Overview of Your Options
Dave SolbergDescription
Based on the amount of boondocking you do and the types of appliances you utilize on your RV, there’s a certain type of RV battery that’s optimal for your needs. While some RVers spend little time at their campsite and rely upon only minimally power-thirsty appliances, others require heavy duty batteries that they can hook up and forget about until they’re back home.
Thus, in this lesson RVing expert Dave Solberg talks about the various RV battery types you can purchase for your home away from home. He first explains which option you might opt for if you don’t mind regular maintenance and need only a small amount of juice, then talks about the upscale choice geared toward those who prefer minimal upkeep and have spare change to spend on something that will go the distance. Whatever your power needs, Dave can help you find the one that’s best suited for your specific needs!
The batteries in your RV will consist of either a six-volt deep cycle battery hooked in series So you would have to have two of them, or a 12 volt system. Now the six volts going to have positive to negative and negative to positive using jumper cables, very similar to this. And then the positive off to the power side and the negative off to the ground. And what that does is it takes six volts and creates a 12 volt battery bank. Typically gives you a lot more power but you have to have two batteries, So you've got more expense, You have more weight, a little more maintenance.
Now the 12 volt battery here, again deep cycle and then the reason is they are designed to be drawn down and cycled back up a charge to several different times, some of them will do 200 or more cycles depending on how well you maintain them. And a typical one starts with a group 24 batteries gonna give you about 150 minutes at 23 amps. Not a lot of time if you're boondocking, you can go up to the group 27, It gives you an not quite twice as much capacity out of it. If you really do a lot of boondocking. And let me back up here a little bit.
If I want more capacity out of this I can add a second battery to this bank here. And I would hook it parallel which means I would go positive to positive and negative to negative. That keeps me at 12 volts, but doubles my amp hours. If I do a lot of boondocking I want to step up to this monster right here. This is called Absorbed Glass Mat.
What's the, the AGM batteries and you see there's no maintenance. You have no film next in here, I can lay it down sideways. If I want to in a compartment if I've got a really tight place to get it. I have a lot less maintenance less sulfation, it's going to give me twice the capacity. It is a lot more expensive but it typically will last a lot longer.
So depending on how much boondocking you use, how much battery capacity you need, you do have a variety of different options from the six to the 12 to the absorbed glass mat, which by the way you can get in both six and 12 volt.
If I am always plugged in to shore power, do I still need a battery?
Very interesting about batteries but I have a question about no battery. If a camper is going to be plugged in all the time such as a seasonal camper would be, is it necessary to have a battery? Does the system need it to be there or not? I think the only 12v usage would be lights and exhaust fan so I don’t think a battery would be needed for any large draw. Your thoughts?
Just purchasing stage but will call or text to have work done or to assist in answers.
Something to touch on would be charging systems. Some converter manufactures do not recommend two 6v batteries. They say at least 4. Also an AGM charges differently than a standard lead acid battery. If your converter is not AGM compatable, it can damage your battery. Good presentation
About 20 years ago this might have been reasonable advice. 2 minutes of my life I won't get back. There is a video to be made about AGM vs lithium - there are so many false claims - but I don't think Dave is the man to do it
I want to replace the lead-acid battery with a lithium battery My 2021 Jayco Greyhawk 30Z came with a Progressive Dynamics Intelli-power 9100 converter for the lead-acid. I need to replace that with an Intelli-power 9100L for the lithium. Where is the converter located?
Can you explain multistage charging and what is a Battery Minder? Can you suggest an inverter that will accomplish this multistage charging to extend battery life?
Could anyone tell me if I were to get a 12 volt or max cap battery to change out my 2 6 volts difficult to do?
I build van life Van's. I have always recommended li_ion batteries as a solution for hi draw builds. Li-on batteries have 8 to 10 times more life than AGM batteries and will accept larger charge and discharge rates. In the long run they are actually a better choice for the long run. BTW, dragonfly is the retail product for Battle Born batteries. Fo some research and check out their site.
Trying to watch the video, but three times I open to play and a picture of fruits and vegetables comes up-how to get this to play? Do I have to upgrade to Premium to get video to play