This charger/converter + this battery = ?

RKW wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:


What a complete waste of money on a AGM battery for THIS purpose.

For what YOU are doing a much cheaper group 24 or 27 combo RV/marine LEAD ACID battery WILL do exactly what you need to do AND should be able to squeak out 8-10 yrs of life provided you are able to add water (IE has removable caps).

Been there, done that with my first TT, ran furnace overnight and still had some battery leftover in the morning..

Sometimes we can easily get caught up in modern battery/technology hype and willing to dump tons of money into plain overkill..

Kind of like using a cannon to swat a fly..

It's funny you should mention running the furnace overnight. That's one of the reasons I wanted a 200ah bank. My previous bank was 2 Trojan T-105's. I tend to drift to overkill to be prepared for the odd time I think I'll need that "extra". My stereo system has to too many watts of power, my car goes too fast, and my barbeque grill can cook 20 hamburgers at a time.

My current TT, I changed to a pair of FLA 6V GC batteries, the ONLY reason for that was I did a household fridge conversion. 200ah runs my home fridge, PLUS furnace (a BIGGER higher draw 30K furnace), PLUS a bunch of lights (LED) for a few hrs in the evening.. AND the batteries MUST support the fridge while DRIVING (charge line works but not all that much stock).

To put in more perspective..

I typically take two days driving (8 hrs of driving each day) with one overnight stop (overnight from 9 PM to 6AM) then to final destination.

First TT (1980s 20ft) with the same trip with a plain generic vanilla group 27 RV/marine battery, ran 18K furnace (5A blower) overnight plus a bunch of 20W incadescent lights for several hrs in the evening and a short time in the morning. This trailer had an oldschool transformer based converter which was hard on battery water but I was able to get 5 yrs of battery life with it.

Same trip with our 26ft TT, 30K furnace has a 10A blower and we converted to all LED lights but adding in a all electric fridge, doing all that on ONE pair of 6V 200ah GC batts in series for 12V. This TT I put in a PD9160 with a charge wizard pendant and our first set of GC batts gave us 9 yrs before they started losing capacity.

The ONLY "reasons" (and it IS a very weak one at that) for AGMs in the OPs case is to remove the watering and possible terminal corrosion maintenance.

Even "maintenance free" (IE no removable caps)FLA should be easily able to squeak by with 5-6 yrs of life with the PD or any other decent multistage chargers. With the OP rarely deeply discharging the battery, just one group 27 FLA should give the OP 40ah-50ah of capacity (which unless they have a furnace with 10A blower running continually for 8hrs should easily be able to overnight).

As far a terminal corrosion goes, I rarley ever see that with any of my vehicles nor do I see that with my FLA GC batts.. When terminals start corroding it typically IS because of the SEAL between the battery case AND the terminal HAS FAILED. The seal fails and the acid from the battery will creep up the terminals.

I also use something called No-Alox, which is a terminal grease designed for preventing oxidation between electrical connections. Typically used to interface aluminum entrance wire to your homes breaker panel, it works wonders at preventing brass, copper or aluminum wire connections from oxidizing in outdoor settings.

I just do not think in the case of the OP that it is worth popping for the cost of AGM, not really taking advantage of the main reasons for them which is quicker charging and better handling high amperage draws (like microwave). OP can get more ahr capacity for less money in FLA than with AGM (although AGM costs have come down they are still more expensive and offer no more life than FLA).