Wet Cell Batteries

[dale farley]

Jon, I want to see what you have done the next time I'm around your bus.

Harry, Indeed, good info on the site.

[dale farley]

After much contemplation, reading several articles and taking your advice, I am going to change my other four batteries. I determined that my old batteries are a little over 3 years old instead of 2 1/2 as I originally thought. Your advice, every article I have read on the internet, and upon closer reading of the inverter manual, everything says don't mix old and
new batteries. I finally found some clarification that says if there is over 6 months difference in age or if the battery capacity is different, they should all be changed.

My old batteries were 1400 CA (225 AH), and the new ones are 1750 CA (250 AH). I have checked the total voltage and specific gravity in every cell two times, and all 6 batteries seem to be excellent. Two times I have left them over night with the refrigerator, lights, etc. on, and after 9 hours, they had 50% charge. I don't really know if that is good or bad.

What I do know is that if they fail in the next year, or if my inverter fails, I don't want to think it is because I didn't have all the batteries matched, so I am making them all the same. I would like to see how much longer the other 4 would last but not at the expense of causing other problems. This means, "Paulette won't be getting 6 new AGMs for Christmas."

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Dale,

Here is the ducting I mentioned. I ran across the photo last night. It is not positioned properly because I was disassembling everything to make my inverter bypass, but you can see the essence of what I have. This was a Liberty feature, not something I added.

[dale farley]

Thanks for the picture Jon.

[hhoppe]

Jon: I'm sorry but that is the most Butt Ugly duct job I've seen in my tifty five years in the Sheet Metal business. Has Roger seen that mess? He may want to look for a new Prince of Bling. Tell me, you did cherry it up a bit after that picture was taken.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Harry, First, I had partially disassembled the ducting. You can see the metal plenum that has been removed from its inverter.

Second, what you are looking at is beneath the head of our bed. It is limited space and each inverter has its own dedicated air intake ducting, and its own dedicated exhaust ducting. When everything is in place it doesn't look much better, but it works. When I reassemble my bed all of this is covered up and out of sight.

It looks better than your plumbing with all that goop on it, so what are you complaining about.

[truk4u]

Harry,

Notice Jon said it was under his bed! When you have to sleep that close to your inverters so the humming puts you to sleep instead of counting sheep, you have a serious problem!

[0533]

How much does a new 4000 watt inverter cost? How difficult is it to install, Is there any benefit to replacing the inverters to get cleaner power, better house battery charging etc before they go???

[hhoppe]

Jon: Touchy Touchy!! I just wanted to see if you can take a little ribbing as well as you dish it out. Yes the goop on my pipes is ugly and they are do for full replacement. I don't know if it will be copper that always needs shining or SS that requires less maintenence. If Liberty would have done a better plumbing job on our cheapo coach in the beginning, I would not have to replace it. I think Liberty ought to sub their plumbing out to Marathon. Maybe the hand washing faucets would wind up on the same side of the coach as the dump hose connection.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Harry,

If you don't have pretty plumbing you really need to keep the doors closed.

The key issue here is if the plumbing carries water. I have found if I don't like the way something is, I change it, so take pictures of your new plumbing project. I think it makes sense to manifold it all and have shutoffs for each fixture. Of course you may have to remove your interior to do that, but you have time, don't you?

Bruce,

You can install 10,000 watt inverters if you want. However, when you do, I know you have to increase the gauge of the wiring back to your 120VAC panel, and since you have more power available (4000 versus 2500) you will want to add more circuits handled by the inverter so you will have to change the buss bars in the CB panel.

The new inverter may have a different remote so plan on running new wiring between the inverter and its remote panel. You will have a lot of the bus apart to get access to run the other wires so that should not be a big deal.

Then you might want to add more batteries because with more inverter loads the existing batteries may not have enough capacity to get through the night without the generator starting up. That might be difficult.

Swapping inverters is the easy part.