Battery compartment. Pfui. I have a Trojan 130 A/h deep cycle under the
bench seat. When the van is going to be parked for more than a week or
so, I plug it into shore power and a dual battery smart charger (1) in
the secret compartment next to the water tank keeps the engine and
deep-cycle happy. When driving, the deep cycle gets a charge from the
alternator through a big ol' relay then a DC > DC battery charger (2, in
the same compartment), which tops it off right nice. When camping for
more than a couple days, I release the kraken, I mean, deploy the solar
panels and my solar controller (3) keeps the battery nicely topped.

==========
1. Guest 2611A 10 Amp Battery Charger
2. Powerstream BC-1212-15
3. Blue Sky Solar Boost 2000E

--
Rocky J Squirrel

On Thu, 2010-09-16 at 13:24 -0600, Tom Buese wrote:
> On Sep 16, 2010, at 1:01 PM, Don Hanson wrote:
>
> > .................
> >  I could go six years the way I do it and still come out ahead of
> > some of
> > the Optima or other fancy RV deep cycle batteries I have seen...and
> > no loss
> > of storage space really.
>
> My Yellow Top Optima auxiliary battery just had its 5 year installed
> anniversary-a lot of trips in that time & still going strong(knock on
> wood)  Also no fancy separators, islolators, relays, inverters, etc.
> Just the westy relay.
>
> YMMV,
>
> Mr. BZ-what's in your battery compartment?
>
>
>
> >  If I should ever need to start using my coach
> > battery, I have some jumper cables.  I also have a small solar panel
> > that
> > lives behind my drivers seat and plugs into an accessory outlet.
> > Sunny
> > days, I take that out and prop it up in the sun...No
> > controller...dunno the
> > amperage but it keeps my coach battery charged on sunny days.
> >
> >  Simple.  That is me.  Don't over think things.  Don't waste
> > precious time
> > that you could be using for fun...Life is Short, eat desert first.
> >
> >  Don Hanson
> >  sent from my laptop