Optima Battery
I am thinking about buying a blue top marine deep cycle for a extra battery for the Truck Camper and also use it in the boat when I am not camping. Anyone have good luck with this battery?
Forum Discussion
OP said "extra" battery, which brings up a very important issue: if you run two batteries in parallel, they need to be carefully matched, lest one of them kill the other prematurely.
If you put a new battery in beside an old one, both will die early, killed by the mismatch. You can put one on the load, run it until it is low, then take it out and run the second battery until it is low, but if you have a traveling battery that swaps between use A and vehicle B, is run in parallel with another mismatched battery one each end, it will result in bad juju for all three batteries.
If you want to put two batteries in your camper, buy two identical ones, put 'em in, and leave them alone.
If you put a new battery in beside an old one, both will die early, killed by the mismatch. You can put one on the load, run it until it is low, then take it out and run the second battery until it is low, but if you have a traveling battery that swaps between use A and vehicle B, is run in parallel with another mismatched battery one each end, it will result in bad juju for all three batteries.
If you want to put two batteries in your camper, buy two identical ones, put 'em in, and leave them alone.
