Battery Watering System

[dale farley]

I have wet cell batteries in both house and engine compartments. A couple of them are hard to get to, so it would be easier if I had an auto-fill watering system similar to the link or picture. Has anyone used one of these units for 12v systems and if so, how well did they work? I see more choices in the 6V systems than the 12v, and the field narrows even more when attaching to 8D batteries.

Yes, I am aware that for less than $8K I can change over to AGMs, but my economic status prevents this. I feel compelled to continue to eat and pay the electric bill!!!

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/qwik-fill-dual-12-volt-battery-watering-system/27037

[Gil_J]

Dale,

Many boaters have successfully used similar systems. I'm guessing your house batteries need water often given their hot location.

Here's another choice http://solar-catalog.com/battery_filling.html#K600TB4

[coreygrubb]

Dale, how many batteries do you have ? 8K ? The time to go to Lifelines or similar is when yours are done, but no where near 8K. Geo.

[dale farley]

Gil,

That is a source that I had not seen. Thanks.

George, I normally have 12. I reduced my house batteries to 6 last year since I don't do much dry camping, so I now have 10. My batteries are a little over a year old and normally last 4 to 5 years.

[coreygrubb]

Dale, whole lot less than 8K. More like 3.5K or so.

[dale farley]

I'll certainly agree that 3.5 sounds much better than 8. Thanks

[garyde]

I had wet cell for the chassis and hated them. Messy and maintence all that time. Sealed batteries with a simple trickle charger is the way to go. At some point, your batteries will need replacing. Change to sealed. Not that much of a cost difference.

[dale farley]

I thought most people were running AGMs for house and wet cells for chassis. I wish my 8ds were the maintenance free type with no removable caps, although I realize that is not a cure-all.

I also thought 8D AGMs were close to $600 each as compared to $125 for wet cells.

[JIM KELLER]

Interesting. Lets see some prices Members have paid for batteries. Like we have done for tires. I know Interstate and Napa make AGM batteries.