I use a wheelchair battery (not even that good, a scooter battery) for
the same reason. I'm  careful about what I install so I don't use to
much juice. You can see the fans, etc. at

http://www.knology.net/~felder/Vanagons/

I use only fluorescent and led lighting, but use a lot of light and
also charge cellphones, pda, run dvds on a laptop, etc. And run a 400
watt inverter. One of these batteries ran a 13" TV, my home wireless
network, cable box and laptop for about an hour during a recent outage.
It runs the kitchen fans all night and runs the lights all I need. I've
never tried it for more than one night without any charge, though.

On a diesel westy these light batteries seem a good weight tradeoff,
I'm like a cyclist when it comes to shaving weight to climb hills
faster : )

Anybody have some titanium rims and 14" sewups?

Jim

On Jan 10, 2005, at 2:18 PM, Jim Kurpius wrote:

> Are there any good reasons not to use a used wheelchair battery as a
> second
> battery?  (I can get them for free).  The batteries are not totally
> dead,
> just capable of holding a charge for 1-2 days instead of 3-4 which for
> a
> wheelchair user is obviously a hassle, but for a westy cabin seems
> like no
> problem.
>
> Jim Kurpius
> 84 Westy
> SF CA
>