Dan de La Mesa
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2015
- Posts
- 129
Mostly because of ongoing comments on this forum about the superior performance of 6-v batteries over 12-v in dry camping situations, I had a guy come out last week and replace my aging house 12-volters with two 6-v. I would have done it myself, but there was a lot of corrosion to deal with, and the former owner had installed a solar panel hookup that I wasn't sure I understood.
So the installer sweated out cutting through the battery holddowns, the bolts and nuts of which were rusted past loosening. He noted along the way that the previous owner had wired the batteries wrong, so that basically only one of the two 12-v was functioning. This is our third RV, and easily the poorest in house battery performance. Now we know why.
We're going dry camping tomorrow and hope to see considerable improvement. Already, the voltage indicator from the solar panel indicates over 14v charging during the day. We'll see how well the system holds at night with the light usage we give it.
By the way, the installer said that about 80% of the RV's he works on don't use traditional battery holddowns; that most owners wedge pieces of wood around the batteries in order to avoid the issue of future corrosion. That's what I did. I also checked the water level in the new batteries and felt that the level was lower than I was comfortable with. It's not now.
So the installer sweated out cutting through the battery holddowns, the bolts and nuts of which were rusted past loosening. He noted along the way that the previous owner had wired the batteries wrong, so that basically only one of the two 12-v was functioning. This is our third RV, and easily the poorest in house battery performance. Now we know why.
We're going dry camping tomorrow and hope to see considerable improvement. Already, the voltage indicator from the solar panel indicates over 14v charging during the day. We'll see how well the system holds at night with the light usage we give it.
By the way, the installer said that about 80% of the RV's he works on don't use traditional battery holddowns; that most owners wedge pieces of wood around the batteries in order to avoid the issue of future corrosion. That's what I did. I also checked the water level in the new batteries and felt that the level was lower than I was comfortable with. It's not now.