B+ motorhomes
I just bought a Trail Lite B+ 211s with 8.1 Chevy engine. This is my fifth motorhome (others range from an old 20' Vagabond, and three Winnegagos, from 19 to 32'. This vehicle is fantastic. I am...
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Just a quick follow-up on my change over to 6v golf cart batteries. I had to loosed the propane tank hold-down bolts and nudge the tank over about a quarter to half and inch to allow for the increased width of the 6v batteries, but it was easy. The Pro-Fill RV watering installed on each battery in a heart beat and the batteries went in end-to-end very smoothly. The Pro-Fill coupling tube and all the electrical cabling was straightforward although the space to work in was a bit tight. All in all pretty easy and worth it IMHO.
I have read much on battery care and feeding as well as differnet converter/charger systems during my researching for this project. There are two definite camps on the converter/chargers: "float" vs "smart" charger output. My Trail-Lite has a Parallax 7355 converter/charger and I found their web page (www.parallaxpower.com) very informative, especially the FAQ section. What I came away with is that in a perfect world (infinite time and money) a smart charger wired in properly is best. However, given that my battery bank is wired in parallel with the RV's 12v system I believe Parallax's float system is just fine as long as I top up the batterys' water once a month (which is a snap with the Pro-Fill or Quick-Fill system!). Also, I recommend checking your battery bank's state-of-charge (SoC or % of deep discharge) with a digital volt meter. All my reading has taught me that we should NEVER discharge out battery bank below 50% capacity, which is approximately 12.2 volts. I now know that the relatively early demise of my last batteries was due to excessive and repeated discharges well below 12 volts. Didn't seem like much of a deal at the time but that's a guaranteed early killer. My OEM micro-monitor panel is made by KIB, and their web site states that the battery LED read out of "C" means 12.7-12.85 volts, "G" means 12.10-12.15 volts, "F" means 11.60-11.65 and "L" means 6.00-??. Next time out I'm going to correlate the LED reading with my volt meter, and if the LEDs don't give me the information I need I will wire in a separate little digital volt meter.
I have read much on battery care and feeding as well as differnet converter/charger systems during my researching for this project. There are two definite camps on the converter/chargers: "float" vs "smart" charger output. My Trail-Lite has a Parallax 7355 converter/charger and I found their web page (www.parallaxpower.com) very informative, especially the FAQ section. What I came away with is that in a perfect world (infinite time and money) a smart charger wired in properly is best. However, given that my battery bank is wired in parallel with the RV's 12v system I believe Parallax's float system is just fine as long as I top up the batterys' water once a month (which is a snap with the Pro-Fill or Quick-Fill system!). Also, I recommend checking your battery bank's state-of-charge (SoC or % of deep discharge) with a digital volt meter. All my reading has taught me that we should NEVER discharge out battery bank below 50% capacity, which is approximately 12.2 volts. I now know that the relatively early demise of my last batteries was due to excessive and repeated discharges well below 12 volts. Didn't seem like much of a deal at the time but that's a guaranteed early killer. My OEM micro-monitor panel is made by KIB, and their web site states that the battery LED read out of "C" means 12.7-12.85 volts, "G" means 12.10-12.15 volts, "F" means 11.60-11.65 and "L" means 6.00-??. Next time out I'm going to correlate the LED reading with my volt meter, and if the LEDs don't give me the information I need I will wire in a separate little digital volt meter.
