The only drawback to these little gems is if one of them starts to go. I
know Karl originally recommended using a aluminum angle to join them
together, but this makes it very difficult to isolate if one is bad.
Something to consider if you've got eight of them. I keep two behind the
driver seat, and then I have the 115 or 125 AH deep cycle battery. I added
one 50 watt solar last year, but didn't get much an opportunity to test it.
I did add a little rubber plug in the slanted firewall under the rear seat,
and this is handy to run a cable for the solar fwiw. Seems like people are
only struggling to find a good path to run the cables. I've got a waterproof
connection on the far end. I use Rocket's idea of a mono pod to support it.
There's some pretty interesting flexible panels out there too that look kind
of appealing. I've got the blue sky MPPT controller, and seems to work
halfway decent, based on my limited experience with it.

Cheers,

Troy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Stevens" <mtbiker62@gmail.com>
To: "Troy" <colorworks@GCI.NET>
Cc: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: [VANAGON] Fw: Battery report

Mine too Troy. I've added 4 more to get 176ah. I put the addnl 4 on the
floor of the sink cabinet, which is easily doable after removing that
useless piece from the floor. My next add will be solar.
Bob

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 28, 2013, at 5:37 PM, Troy <colorworks@GCI.NET> wrote:

> Hi folks:
>
> I think it was Karl from Westy Ventures who first recommended the
> universal 12220 batteries. I have been using these things for 4+ years
> now, and this is one of the only batteries that has lasted for me. What
> prompted me to write this is I just went out to the van to retrieve one of
> my batteries that has not been charged for a while, and much to my
> amazement it was still fully charged. That's pretty impressive considering
> it's -44 below here in Fairbanks. I think it was about a month ago that I
> put a charger on it. I had a second one that was indoors, and it too is
> fully charged. I've used these batteries a bunch.