Need New House Batteries - HELP!
Hello all, I could sure use some help and guidance from the experts! I'll do my best to keep this short and really appreciate you taking the time to read about my dilemma.
I have a 2005 American Eagle 40J and my batteries are toasted after 2.5 years. That being said I also need to explain that we had a bad inverter motherboard which was likely the culprit. Before finding out about the motherboard, we had two large solar panels installed because we also do a lot of dry camping.
I currently have 4 Interstate 6v Deep Cycle, 232ah batteries that we purchased in late 2014.
After installing the solar I thought our issues would be solved but my volts seem to follow the sun going down, to around 12.2, from a full 14.7 during the day. Is this normal? Shouldn't they remain higher? We run our inverter during the night for a sleeping machine and in the morning we're typically around 11.8v and have to fire up the generator to get things moving again. So, that's a long way of saying I think my batteries aren't holding a charge. I check the batteries fairly often and make sure they have enough water.
On to the question and request - I watch the RV Geeks pretty often and noticed they upgraded to the Lifeline AGM. I can't really see spending $1600 on 4 house batteries and I know there are lots of schools of thought out there but, what's a good, maintenance FREE battery that will hold a charge and last, without breaking the bank? Lifeline, Trojan, Costco, Duracell?
Deeply appreciate your feedback!
Steve
I have a 2005 American Eagle 40J and my batteries are toasted after 2.5 years. That being said I also need to explain that we had a bad inverter motherboard which was likely the culprit. Before finding out about the motherboard, we had two large solar panels installed because we also do a lot of dry camping.
I currently have 4 Interstate 6v Deep Cycle, 232ah batteries that we purchased in late 2014.
After installing the solar I thought our issues would be solved but my volts seem to follow the sun going down, to around 12.2, from a full 14.7 during the day. Is this normal? Shouldn't they remain higher? We run our inverter during the night for a sleeping machine and in the morning we're typically around 11.8v and have to fire up the generator to get things moving again. So, that's a long way of saying I think my batteries aren't holding a charge. I check the batteries fairly often and make sure they have enough water.
On to the question and request - I watch the RV Geeks pretty often and noticed they upgraded to the Lifeline AGM. I can't really see spending $1600 on 4 house batteries and I know there are lots of schools of thought out there but, what's a good, maintenance FREE battery that will hold a charge and last, without breaking the bank? Lifeline, Trojan, Costco, Duracell?
Deeply appreciate your feedback!
Steve
