| Author | Message | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Registered Member Username: Captain_ron Post Number: 631 Registered: 1-2005 Posted From: 66.174.79.241 Rating: N/A |
Remember about a year and a half ago Cliff the Florida Cracker gave me six batteries and a few of you said they wouldn't work or I was wasting my time. well they finaly need replaced and mainly because I probably didn't care for them properly. letting them discharge almost completelty, fast charging them, freezing weather ect. So now I need to replace them as they only hold a charge for a couple days. what is the best setup you guys have found for house batteries? how much is over kill? how much money am I gonna have to spend? J.J. who put together my electrical system in my old bus (quite wonderfully I might add) then I pulled it out and used it in the new bus, has it wire so all curcuits work on all of my power sources. some times I forget to unplug my hot water heater when on my inverter. is there a way to make that not run on the inverter but on every thing else? I also need a small pure sine or true sine inverter for one receptical for my printer to run off of. any body got one for sale reasonably or know where to steer me. just need a small one for that porpose only. | ||
| Kyle Brandt (Kyle4501)
Registered Member Username: Kyle4501 Post Number: 217 Registered: 9-2004 Posted From: 65.23.106.193 Rating: N/A |
For batteries, I'd suggest Trojan T-105's as many as you can fit in. They seem to be the most amp hours per buck. Adding water miser caps will reduce maintence. I called around & found that the price varied widely. Call the golf courses & see where they get their batteries from. (Dad got his from a place across town that had over 100 in stock & their price was lowest.) As for the water heater . . . . A relay that energizes the water heater only if on shore or generator power would do the trick. Another idea - put a mechanical timer switch on the heater so the water heater is only on for a while & then turns off. It depends on how you use it if this will work well for you. Another idea - Put a switch for the water heater next to the inverter switch. This still depends on your memory  Good luck kyle4501 | ||
| Tom Caffrey (Pvcces)
Registered Member Username: Pvcces Post Number: 1006 Registered: 5-2001 Posted From: 65.74.65.54 Rating: N/A |
Ron, you could try doing without the AC power to the heater if it also runs on propane. Barring that, I would consider putting a cord on the heater that couldn't be hidden while it was in use. When you don't need it, just coil the cord up and put it away. Another thing that ought to work okay is having the switch for the heater right where you can see and reach it when pulling out your shore cord or putting it away. Kyles battery info is good as far as the price for new batteries is concerned, but you can improve on that by finding yourself a good buy on L16 batteries. They are designed to last much longer for the service that you are using them in, there is no increase in weight over 2 golf cart batteries and are rated for just about twice the power, they make better use of your floor space and they are more efficient at what they do. Figure on golf carts costing $1 to 1.50 per pound. They weight about 65 pounds, each. The L16s run about 125 lbs. and take very little more floor space than a golf cart battery. Everything that you can shift off of AC to DC will make it easier on keeping your batteries up because of inverter losses and because inverters are not efficient at low power levels. A good power meter and running all your AC loads through your inverter will be the main tools to know how you are treating your batteries. Without a good power meter, you're running blind and will be surprised again and again. Good luck on your replacements. Tom Caffrey PD4106-2576 Suncatcher Ketchikan, Alaska | ||
| John Novo (Medicnovo)
Registered Member Username: Medicnovo Post Number: 4 Registered: 10-2006 Posted From: 68.168.249.92 Rating: N/A |
If you want golf cart batteries, now is a good time to get them. Up north, leased golf carts just got returned. I picked up a couple of 6v golf cart betteries for $30ea and they were new in the spring. Ive only had them in a couple of days but they are working great. | ||
| David Ljung Madison (Daveola)
Registered Member Username: Daveola Post Number: 94 Registered: 11-2005 Posted From: 199.46.31.34 Rating: N/A |
Re: the water heater You don't mention how many power sources you have, but presuming it's gen/shore/batteries, then conceivably you could hookup a relay to the battery/inverter output to shutoff the water heater. Otherwise you'd probably need another auto transfer switch (just for the water heater, hooked up to gen/shore). But it really all depends on what the current circuit is. | ||
| Dale Fleener (Dale_mc8)
Registered Member Username: Dale_mc8 Post Number: 53 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 4.246.111.19 Rating: N/A |
If you can find someone else that needs batteries you might get a better deal from the distributer by buying a whole pallet of batteries. I paid considerably less for my (16) house batteries, got them delivered and they threw in a couple battery carrying tools. The 2 batteries left from the pallet of 18 I traded to a local RV dealership for other stuff I needed. HTH Dale MC8 |