hey guys welcome to the great outdoors
RV my name is mait and today we're gonna go a little bit more in depth on
batteries so batteries are the heart of a camper because they run everything
they can run everything from power awnings
slide outs stab Jack's lights even some of your 110 appliances like your fridge
and your furnace and your you name it all those things sometimes have a combo
where they need propane and battery or 110 power and battery so we're gonna go
through what kind of battery you need and how to maintain those batteries and
everything about batteries and campers alright we
have Rick with interstate battery thanks for joining us here good to see you
so we have a few questions about batteries and what is the different
types of batteries what should we look at for RV use okay so typically you have
about four different varieties of batteries
you only lead-acid batteries fluid-filled obviously there's some
sulfuric acid in there that is fillable but then you've got AGM which is
absorbed glass matt there'll be no fluid inside of them and you're typically
going to have higher run capacities but your costs are going to be higher Gel
cell batteries are very similar to AGM they're hard to find and then the last
is obviously lithium-ion which is a new coming technology that they're still
trying to perfect and so you don't see them hardly anywhere but they are
available okay so so the best option out of all those four options is there is
every one that stands out above the rest of what people should be using in a
typical application just the regular lead acid battery is gonna be your best
option because they're gonna cost you half the price uh-huh they're gonna have
there a proven technology that's been around for 150 years yeah so everybody
knows that for the money this is gonna be your best option
yeah a lot of guys have typical situations where they're gonna be
off-roading a lot and they want that but lack of ability to spill acid so yeah I
would recommend going with AGM there okay but it's gonna depend I mean if you
if you're not really beating your camper up yeah I wouldn't recommend it so I
would stick with the typical wet cell battery because they're easy to maintain
you can't maintain easier min gel batteries there's there's nothing you
can do if something goes wrong with those berries these you have some
options so that's yeah yeah yep so what kind of maintenance stuff do you need it
we have guys that they'll have a camper that will they'll bring in and their
battery and it's only a year old and it's done and then other guys they said
oh you have this battery last me five years what's what's the difference you
know it's all dependent upon the person and and how well they've kept up and
checking fluids if they've let him run down time enough
times you know want that one guy that lasts a year he could have gone camping
20 times and the guy that made in the last five years only went camping two or
three times a year yeah so depends on runtimes there's a
lot of different situations there that could cause that one major thing is to
make sure that there's a fluid in your batteries okay well they are all
maintenance-free technically but you do have the option to take the cap off and
check the fluid levels okay so we recommend that you keep your fluid
levels at least a half an inch below the bottom of the inside of the cap and you
can use distilled water or you can buy sulfuric acid from like a parts
warehouse and and refill the batteries and we don't recommend using normal tap
water because there are a lot of different variants that could be
introduced in the water that could cause plating problems and corrosion and that
kind of stuff so that's why they've been distilled okay what are the things that
I need to do to make sure that the battery stay maintained and lasts as
long as possible so make sure that during the winter when you're not using
that camper that those batteries stay charged okay you if you let them go to
fifty percent the sulfuric acid turns into water and water freezes and they'll
bulge out and they'll crack and they'll break and then though all those plates
are done and then all the plates will separate and it's they're done yeah you
can't once you freeze a battery your your odds of bringing it back are so and
enough how cold can I let a battery get if it's charged there's not a
temperature that we haven't seen that in a camper if it's fully charged where
they freeze so as long as they are fully charged sulfuric acid will not freeze
okay in an everyday situation that's awesome okay yeah so and then the third
factor obviously is to make sure when you're deep cycling your batteries to
make sure you have the appropriate amperage is available okay for your
usage so if you're going weekend camping you're gonna want lower amperage ratings
on your batteries because then you'll be able to deep cycle them to the correct
rate when you're done come back and recharge them so you want to discharge
your batteries to about 50% and then recharge them so if you have two six
volt batteries with high amperages and you're only
using about 10% of their capacity okay you're gonna shorten the life of your
batteries because you're not using them to their full capability gotcha so they
kind of develop a memory after a while and so that's why you want to be
discharged and fully recharged yes to keep that going yep exactly so Rick what
about 12 volt versus 6 volt what should people consider doing how many batteries
should they have on their camper what's what's what's reasonable that's all
going to depend on the size of the camper let's say I have a 30-foot camper
with a slide out on it and maybe 10 lights inside it has power awning sure
something like that so typically in that situation that's that's a decently sized
camper I would recommend at the very least going with to 12 volts okay
because that's going to give you enough power to run the slide in and run the
awning and that kind of thing in a short weekend type situation okay if you're a
camper that likes to go out and you're not near power and you're gonna go for
an entire week in that same size camper you would want to probably go with a six
volt battery and/or extra 12 volt batteries because you're gonna get that
extra amperage so okay go with a six volt you're gonna get about twice the
average that you would with a single 12 volt twice the answer twice the amperage
so you're going down and volts but you're jumping up in amperage got yet so
– six volts versus – 12 volts what's the power difference between those two
so with – 6 volts you're gonna have about 450 Reserve minutes in to 6 volts
whereas with 2 standard group 24s you're only gonna have about 240 or 280 280 so
there's a big difference big difference okay now so you know it just it depends
on the camper and depends on your camping style but typically in like a
30-foot camper with slide outs you're at least gonna want to have two 12-volt
batteries in there to cover usage over a weekend gotcha so tell me about
precautions anything I need to know about I know there's battery boxes and
venting tell me why that's important – so in a lead-acid battery naturally just
sitting there sitting here venting right now
okay so sulfuric acid won't even get my gas mask right now so they vent yeah which means that
they're producing hydrogen gas yeah so as sulfur the sulfuric acid dissipates
in charge it releases hydrogen gas and then the sulfur attaches to the plates
okay the hydrogen gas naturally comes out Vince in the caps so you want to be
careful especially if you're going to go and charge these batteries because you
can cause a spark and hydrogen gas is extremely explosive oh so if you've ever
seen a camper come in and they've had their battery burst open yeah it's
probably because they've got that battery really warm yeah and it created
a very large amount of hydrogen gas in their battery box and some sort of spark
ignited it Wow okay and it can be very dangerous but it's very avoidable – yeah
so again like I said check your fluid levels and make sure that your plating
is not exposed in your battery because that is the point at which you create
the ability for electrical spark to happen in the top of the batteries and
that's where the hydrogen gas see that's that totally incentivized me to check
that level yeah it'll be fine that battery won't work no but it could blow
up if you don't have the check your fluids
I only have tap water and I don't have distilled water and I'm in that
situation and I see my plates what do I do
put it in better light it's better safe than sorry gotcha you don't want what
those exploding because sulfuric acid can cause extreme eye damage it can burn
your skin it's really dangerous so when you're checking these out wear safety
glasses and rubber gloves because trust me I know working in the battery world
every day it gets on your skin and it doesn't feel good so gotcha absolutely
hey now I know this might be a slightly biased question to ask you but tell me a
little bit about Interstate Batteries versus the competition why should people
consider Interstate Batteries okay well the interstate has been around
for well over 65 years we were proven in our technology we've got different
plating technologies different acid compositions that we used other
companies don't okay however that may just be for our
batteries but what makes us outstanding number one is our service we
battery delivery to every county in every state in the United States every
single day if they need it so it doesn't matter where you are if you have an
issue you can find an interstate battery dealer nearby that can take care of you
even if you didn't buy the interstate battery from that spot yep our warranty
covers you nationwide that's great yep and even into Canada oh yeah that's
that's our number one thing that makes us stand out from other companies is
that we we're everywhere and we're really our main focus is to make sure
our customers are taking care of cool well Rick thanks man for taking the time
than all this nice to be here battery mumbo-jumbo if you have any questions
feel free to comment below I see this guy at least once a week every other
week and I can always ask him and we'll comment below and answer your questions
that way you can also reach us at the great outdoors RV comm and to check out
all of our other service and parts videos you can also call us at nine
seven zero three one three four three three seven okay to recap six volts are
a great way to go to make sure that you keep distilled water in your batteries
so that they don't explode and so that they have a long life 3 make sure that
the battery is charged to the fullest amount while it's in storage so you
don't freeze it and 4 make sure that you are not discharging it below 50% alright
guys thanks for joining me on this battery video feel free to hit the like
button that helps me now also feel free to subscribe if you want to see more
videos like this and if you have any questions feel free to comment down
below I'll answer them that way also you can go to our website www.thegreatoutdoorsrv.com or give us a call 970.313.43377 alright have a great day
bye guys!
RV Basics Off Grid Tips & Tricks 12 Volt RV Battery Setup Knowledge Of Electrical System
