Battery and cahrger replacement advice
Let me preface this by saying I'm pretty new to this so I'm still learning how the electrical system in my travel trailer works.
I recently bought a 2004 Gulfstream Amerilite BHL travel trailer. My wife and I are taking four months off starting in July to travel around the western US. We'll be spending the majority of our time in camp sites that do not have electrical hook ups. We'll probably spend 6 days out of the week without hook ups and 1 day per week somewhere with shore power, city water, etc. so we can take real showers, find a laundromat, etc.
We've taken the trailer out camping to try it out and see if there is anything we need to fix before hitting the road for good. At the moment, it has a Napa 8240 marine battery http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/NBE8240/. The reserve capacity of that battery is 120 which, if what I've read is correct, is roughly equivalent to 70 amp hours. We'll be spending our days hiking and probably won't be staying up very late with the lights on. I am mainly concerned with being able to run the water pump and the furnace fan. We won't need to run the heat a lot but we'll be at pretty high altitudes at times so it can get pretty cold even though it's Summer and Fall. We could probably do OK with 70 AH but I want to upgrade. I went to Costco today and took a look at the golf cart batteries they sell for $84. Two of those would give me 208 AH. They also have a marine battery (which I know is not a true deep cycle battery) with a reserve capacity of 160. I found a forum post where someone claiming to work for interstate says those batteries are 120 amp hours, which seems like a high estimate to me. Based on the rule of thumb conversion (which I know is not precise), it should be more like 100 amp hours. I am leaning towards getting the golf cart batteries but I'd be interested in the opinion of someone more experienced than myself.
Regardless of what direction I go with the batteries, I really need to upgrade the converter/charger to have any chance of keeping the batteries charged. I have a Honda eu2000i generator that we'll bring with us. The travel trailer currently has an Elixir ELX-45 converter/charger. I was thinking of replacing it with the WFCO (WF8945PEC) http://www.amazon.com/WFCO-WF8945PEC-WF-8900-Converter-Charger/dp/B00K8D9HJ4. It looks like it should be a pretty straightforward replacement. Any opinions on it? Should I be looking at anything else?
I recently bought a 2004 Gulfstream Amerilite BHL travel trailer. My wife and I are taking four months off starting in July to travel around the western US. We'll be spending the majority of our time in camp sites that do not have electrical hook ups. We'll probably spend 6 days out of the week without hook ups and 1 day per week somewhere with shore power, city water, etc. so we can take real showers, find a laundromat, etc.
We've taken the trailer out camping to try it out and see if there is anything we need to fix before hitting the road for good. At the moment, it has a Napa 8240 marine battery http://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/NBE8240/. The reserve capacity of that battery is 120 which, if what I've read is correct, is roughly equivalent to 70 amp hours. We'll be spending our days hiking and probably won't be staying up very late with the lights on. I am mainly concerned with being able to run the water pump and the furnace fan. We won't need to run the heat a lot but we'll be at pretty high altitudes at times so it can get pretty cold even though it's Summer and Fall. We could probably do OK with 70 AH but I want to upgrade. I went to Costco today and took a look at the golf cart batteries they sell for $84. Two of those would give me 208 AH. They also have a marine battery (which I know is not a true deep cycle battery) with a reserve capacity of 160. I found a forum post where someone claiming to work for interstate says those batteries are 120 amp hours, which seems like a high estimate to me. Based on the rule of thumb conversion (which I know is not precise), it should be more like 100 amp hours. I am leaning towards getting the golf cart batteries but I'd be interested in the opinion of someone more experienced than myself.
Regardless of what direction I go with the batteries, I really need to upgrade the converter/charger to have any chance of keeping the batteries charged. I have a Honda eu2000i generator that we'll bring with us. The travel trailer currently has an Elixir ELX-45 converter/charger. I was thinking of replacing it with the WFCO (WF8945PEC) http://www.amazon.com/WFCO-WF8945PEC-WF-8900-Converter-Charger/dp/B00K8D9HJ4. It looks like it should be a pretty straightforward replacement. Any opinions on it? Should I be looking at anything else?
