Re: [A/S] i'm looking for a good battery hookup system in my vw westfalia

["a9464 <a9464@xxxxxxxxxxx>" <a9464@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Hi,                                                                
I have a 78 AS with the original convertor. I carry two 80 amp deep 
cycle batterys as Airstream intended. At replacement time I will get 
a couple of larger ones.  They are now 3 years old and I just tested 
them and they  are as good as new. I have never needed to add water. 
I use my rig for some boondocking, some long highway trips, and 
sometimes pluged in. During the winter it sits in the yard and once 
in awhile on a sunny afternoon I will turn on the power for a few 
hours and watch a movie. I have a 100 watt panel the will keep up if 
I am conservative. But I like to watch old movies and that will take 
them down. Another thing that takes a battery down is acid leakage 
around the connections and it may not look like it but they all leak. 
This will cause high resistance and premature discharging. I wash the 
top of the battery with a solution of baking powder and water. You 
can see it work. Then rinse and dry. Scrap any hard corosion off with 
a wire brush or a pocket knife.  I then coat all the posts and cable 
connecting ends with ordinary axle grease. Looks ugly but will keep 
those connections acid free for years. The battery in my garden 
tractor is ten years old and has never needed to be cleaned or 
recharged. It sits from Nov. to April. The AGM batterys give better 
service than the flooded batterys, but at a higher cost. Sometimes 
more is not economicly better. For long boondocking stays I carry an 
extra battery that sits in the back of the truck. It is connected to 
the same wire that feeds 12 volts to the trailor. It charges as I 
travel and when on site I unplug it from the truck and connect it to 
the trailer. (I have made a couple of external connectors for this) I 
supose that the new convertors do work better than my old convertor, 
but mine always seem to give the service I need. Arnie