This charger/converter + this battery = ?

If it actually initiates 14.4 regardless, that is a great option. I have read conflicting comments so I had to ask. Thank you, sir.

Is the PD's Charge Wizard not available in California?

The CW is where you push the button and get four hours of 14.4v. If the PD goes into boost by itself (not using the CW) it will stay at 14.4 only as long as it thinks it needs to (not sure how it knows that), which could be two or three hours, whatever.

At least that is how I read the info on that. PD owners can confirm or correct.

Instead of blurbs and excerpts, I'll go into detail on the AGM charging matter.

• It's a lot easier to equalize a flooded battery correctly than it is to correctly CONDITION an absorbed glass mat battery
• BOTH types of battery have absolutely no available device you can purchase to do the job correctly without modification
• Batteries that are fully cycled like BFL13's are much more sensitive than a weekend warrior's
• A thousand hours connected to a power pole manages to restore some of the ampere-hour shortage caused by pretend chargers
• So my advice is almost always directed at AGMS that see generator charging or heavy cycling for longer than a week
• Permanent loss of capacity may be restored by conditioning which only can be corrected by following Lifeline's conditioning instructions to the letter
• No pretend charger can even approach this
• Recharging a slightly cycled AGM with 100 hours of light cycling followed by a thousand hours of power pole charging is a world apart from a regimen of 50% discharging followed by attempting to recover by running a generator (2nd attempt at trying to explain this)
• The more deep the discharge on ANY battery the more strict the 100% recovery becomes
• A simple fix for a smart chargers major malfuntion would be to push a button and automatically initiate a four hour 14.40 voltage limited charge
• The four hour charge would be very useful for wet battery recovery but California has legislated that this feature would be unlawful. Do you see any smart charger with this feature?
• No way
• Does the battery care what you think or California legislates?
• No
• It must follow the rules of chemistry and die an unnaturally early death
• A 20% lack of battery capacity is almost impossible to confirm by guesswork
• Your generator run time knows
• If you don't mind paying for a 100 amp-hour battery and hauling around a 75 amp hour battery neither do I
• It's when an AGM battery loses 35% or greater that most people realize something is not right
• Only a full recovery conditioning can attempt to restore -some- of the lost capacity
• This is not a disadvantage verus a wet battery which continues to sulfate
• My nine-year old -lightly used- Lifeline battery was just measured ending Saturday
• It retains 94% capacity
• This is not phenomenal
• A heavily cycled Lifeline would do the same after a thousand 50% cycles
• Now stop and figure out your days of average vacation divided into one thousand
• All due to the fact that the battery was not refilled to 100% EVER

None of this is important to people who don't mind purchasing new batteries every three years. In my case, eight hundred dollars means something to me -- a month's worth of pension needlessly lost.

And again I mention the difference between how hard you use a battery and the length of time it is subject to the abuse. And this is qualified by the amount percentage of undercharging and length of time spent undercharged.

People who scorn advice are the first to yell about how 200 amp hours runs out in the middle of the night.

Shortages are correctable but the correction is not automatically resolved by any converter. The most one can discover is the least offensive to rectify.

Choosing a converter because it is LEAST offensive to the battery does not quite add up. Most of the folks reading this thread have batteries that have lost most of their capacity. And then get upset that their heaterless experience leaves them uncomfortable at 0400. Well! Another set of batteries?

9The secret is to take care of whatever battery you have. Then it will pay dividends. It seems only BFL 13, a serious boondocker has a serious grasp of the total concept.

It's the MONEY $$$$$ spent on total kWh hours of accumulation that matters. This must be vectored so as to encompass TOTAL hours of attention directed toward charging and maintenance (including fuel cost and the amount of $$$$$ and time spent to refuel).

My object is to NOT spend a hundred dollars a day on fuel to recreate. If I spend a hundred bucks I want to ring down for room service for my Eggs Benedict and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

If I had to dance the Macarena to have fun, I hitched a feed bag of oats onto the hoss and mule and tossed pack-saddles, and hauled ass. Into the woods, I went. I want to arise to the sound of a Jay, and hollow-sounding woodpecker announcing his turf.

Screw having heaters blow out at 4 AM -- that isn't recreation to me -- it's a pain in the ass.

If you want rolling luxury, artificial environment, and talking heads on the wall with no one paying attention, you need to plan for it and accept the cost consequences. Fantasy just got its ass kicked by reality. One thing that dreamers have a hard-time with = reality.

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

Yes and no. Of course a flooded battery will serve the OP's purpose just fine but an AGM, despite it's higher cost, is preferred by an increasing number of RVrs simply because they're sealed and require no watering at all. I replaced a 10 yr old G27 flooded Interstate with an East Penn AGM and wouldn't ever go back to flooded. K.I.S.S. :p

The way a battery is TREATED has 99.999999% to do with how long it lasts. There is a period to the left as you will notice.

Power Pole Princess batteries can last a long time. So a battery that sees a week of cycling then hundreds of hours of PPP charging will last longer than a continuously full cycled battery even with the most accurate care. Another period.

Trying to compare the two batteries would rate right up there with Einstein's famous quote.

It's as nuts as those fabulously stupid

"I lived to 103 years by......"

People eat it up.

And they vote! That is even scarier.

Thanks for the replies so far. Good info.

RKW wrote:
FYI to the forum, 90% of the time my RV will be sitting on the pad and connected to shore power and in 20 years of RVing I've probably only boondocked 10 times and all those were just overnight.

Considering your intended use I see no need for such a large capacity battery when a G24 would suit your needs 90% of your camping time. Having replaced my aged flooded G27 Interstate with a G31 AGM from East Penn I'd recommend an AGM that requires zero maintenance, other than periodic recharging of course. Size, your choice and how much you want to spend - G24, G27, G31 - but even a G24 should get you through an overnight stay. That, and the fact that in a pinch you can always draw from your tow vehicle as long as you keep that draw minimal. I also keep a small lithium battery jump starter in the truck in the rare case I might have pulled the truck battery down more than I should have, an example being the NOCO GB40 Jump Starter.

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).