Best Boondocking Mod Ever
Most RV's are not known for their battery capacity. Our travel trailer came with only a single 12V battery, which was really marginal for anything more than light-summer camping. We soon replaced that single 12V battery with a pair of 6V batteries - the kind commonly used in golf carts. These batteries performed great, and had no problem driving the Xantrex Freedom, 1500 Watt inverter.
We intended to upgrade our current RV in a similar fashion. Although it came from the factory with two 12V batteries, we knew that these small Group 24 batteries (80 Amp-Hours each, versus 220 Amp-Hours for the two 6V's) were not really adequate for any kind of serious camping duty. Unfortunately, the battery compartment under the entry step was not tall enough to house the 6V batteries. After some careful measuring, we determined that slightly larger Group 27 batteries would fit. These offered 105 Ah each, or 210 Ah total - about the same as our previous 6V setup. At least on paper - in reality, we knew that these batteries would not perform quite as well as the 6V's, because the 6V's are really designed to be abused. Their thick, heavy plates are meant to handle the repeated deep discharges required for golf cart duty, whereas the 12V batteries - even these "deep cycle" versions - are not nearly as beefy. Since we had no other options for larger batteries in the stock location, we again turned to Camping World, in San Martin, CA, for a solution.
Chris Rendon, at Camping World, performed our previous installation on the trailer and really impressed us with his attention to detail and the quality of the work. I think we challenged Chris a bit more, this time! He built a custom, sealed, battery box in the rear cargo area (black box in the picture, in front of the spare tire) to house a second pair of Group 27 batteries - giving us a total of four. These batteries are connected to the pair under the step by 2/0 cables, which limit the efficiency-loss (because the two pairs are so far apart).
Chris sealed the box with a weather-striping "gasket", and vented it to the outside (the vent is visible at the front of the box, underneath the spare tire). To complement the 400+ Amp-hours of capacity, we went all-out and had Chris install a Xantrex Prosine 2.0 inverter/charger. At 2,000 Watts (4,500W surge) it is a bit larger than our last inverter. It is also a true sine wave inverter, which runs our TV's and microwave just like being plugged into the grid. Our previous modified sine wave inverter caused lines to appear on the TV, and did not run the microwave very well.
The inverter is installed in an outside compartment that is only about 18" away from the pair of batteries under the step. Again, you can see the level of detail Chris put into this job - well ventilating the compartment.
We got the RV out for the first test of our new gear this past weekend, and it worked great! We had a bit of rain Friday evening, so the kids got to watch some TV (with our new satellite antenna!) and we watched a bit, too. We went all weekend on just the batteries, although I did run the generator for an hour just to test the charging circuit. I had to chuckle, because there was a toy hauler just a few spots down from us, that ran their generator constantly all weekend. There is nothing better than a huge battery bank!
With neighbors Santa Cruz to the north and Monterey to the south, it is understandable how S
