RV House Batteries - The Top 3 Choices

Another quality informational video. You are our go-to guy. Thanks!

Thanks for the thorough and understandable explanation.

Thanks so much, I’m in the research stage of building a solar system for the camper van my son and I are building. And you really helped me with the battery issue.

Great information! Answered a lot of my questions on what type of batteries I need to replace in my motorhome. Thank you so much!

SIMPLE and EXCELLENT Video. Thank you.

I recently re-powered my small truck camper. Two group 24 12v AGMs performed admirably for 11 years. I looked at Lithium but decided they would outlive the remaining useful life of both me and my camper. Lithium would also require a new charging system. I’m 70 and don’t even buy green bananas anymore. I went with two 6v 220ah AGMs in series. For marginal more weight my usable amp-hours were increased greatly. If I were young and ordering a new rig, lithium all the way!

Thank you this was great information.

Excellent and very helpful. Thank you

Great video...very informative!

Great information very interesting thanks.

Excellent video Dwane 👍

Very informative, thanks

Thank you!

Thanks for keeping it straight forward. MY TT came with one 12v battery and I added a second, same brand/size. I did switch to LED lights everywhere but still had power issues when dry camping. Then I switched from the two 12v in parallel to two 6v in series. It made a huge difference for us. The heater was the big pull in cold weather. On my second set of 6v now, seems they last about 5 years with care and maintenance. I top them off with my little Honda inverter every few days. Lithium is a tough $ button to push in building a complete 12v system but I am starting to see some complete lithium/solar systems coming from Montana with Dragonfly batteries, the parent of Battleborn.Thanks for always mentioning the costs vs technology.

Great video! Another big con of lithium is they can overheat an alternator and burn it up unless using something to control the charge current such as a dc-dc charger.

Great advice! A quality charger is most important for any battery life. I have 10 years on a AGM motorcycle battery, and its still 100%.

Duane you have hit a another HOME RUN!! It's hard to come up with the cash for the lithium batteries but when you factor in weight, maintaining, number of cycles charge, discharged and no off gassing! No other choice for me. THANKS SAFE TRAVELS TO YOU

After 4 years FT we learned that we enjoy boondocking most of the time. We just ditched the 2 FLA golf cart batteries that we started our FT adventure with in January and build a custom 560ah zero maintenance, 12v LiFePo-4 battery from 8, 280ah prismatic cells. The grade "A" cells we chose have an 8,000-cycle mfg. projected life at 80% DOD or 6,000 cycles at 100% DOD. This means that if we cycled them 100% every single day, 365 days a year, they would last over 16 years! The main reason we went with these cells (other than their price and quality) is that they fit perfectly under the steps of our motorhome where our old pair of GC-2 golf cart batteries used to reside, saving 35lbs while having over 5 times the usable energy storage capacity. We found they charge much faster too. We insulated the battery compartment, cut a small 1" hole in our step risers and installed a tiny computer CPU fan to keep this space at close to room temperature. We have the fan mounted blowing over our 5a active balancer to keep this component cool and healthy, prolonging its life too. This battery has about the capacity of 2 Battleborn Gamechangers, a pair of which will set you back over $4,700, yet our equivalent capacity custom built battery only cost us $1,500 to assemble, complete with a 330A Heltec BMS (with a 1,200a surge for starting our generator) and a 5a active balancer. Plus, it fits under our steps, while the Gamechangers do not. We started our build 4 years ago with a 620-watt liftable solar array mounted on the side of our motorhome. It serves as a nice bedroom window awning too. It practically lifts itself to the correct angle with a couple gas struts and it's easy to clean with a windshield squeegee, standing safely on the ground. Lifting an array to the correct angle determined by latitude and month, produces 25-30% more than a flat mounted array - even more in winter when the sun is low on the horizon. The cost of our entire off-grid solar set-up, including the liftable array, wiring, breakers, a new Progressive Dynamics 80a Li compatible converter/charger, 600w PSW inverter (to run our TV and PC - we still use our generator to run the AC and microwave), an Epever 50a MPPT controller, an Lnex battery monitor/shunt, and a Renogy battery to battery charger (to protect the alternator) was around $3,600 - still $1,100 cheaper than a pair of Battleborn Gamechanger batteries by themselves!

Thanks for the great info! Batteries in our travel trailer never seem to have a great lifespan (despite minimal use) but I never considered the converter/charger potentially being the problem. Probably one of those situations where manufacturers use the cheapest component they can get because they know it’s out of sight anyways… I’ll admit it’s not the first thing I check when I’m RV shopping!😏 Now maybe a good time to upgrade our battery and charger!🤔

Great video, as always! One note on multi-stage charger-converters: the charging pattern for lead-acid, AGM, and Lithium (LiFePo4) is different. Some chargers are programmed for all three, and will automatically detect which one. Others are coded for just one type of battery. Make sure you match the charger profile to the battery type, or you won't get the most life (and charge) out of your battery.