Battery

[TDury]

Florida and its heat literally eats batteries! I installed my third battery a little over two years ago and it's dead as well. It will not hold a charge. It was an Optima D31M. A friend just gave me a battery that he had for his boat but sold his boat. It is a Alpha Cell 195 XTV.

My question, has anyone used this type of battery before and should I expect anything unusual in installing it? I included pictures of the old Optima and the new gifted battery. BTW, they are the exact same size!

[jcurtis934]

Haven't used it, but you shouldn't have any issues with using it based on specs quoted by Alpha.

[Daryles]

The trick to making flooded lead acid (FLA) batteries last longer is never going below 50% of their rated capacity State of Charge (SoC).
For FLA batteries this is about 12vdc.
If you don't have a real battery monitor you can use a multimeter OR if you don't have a multimeter you can use your level up control panel. In the menu you can see the battery voltage.
Also you must keep an eye on the water level in them. Keep them topped up especially in warmer climates.
If you don't boondock, it's not too important how many amp hour (AH) you have. The battery is primarily for helping drive the hydraulic pump. This can pull 90A when operating. Your converter may not put out enough by itself so the battery does all the work.
If you boondock, you need a truly deep cycle battery with as many AH as you can get.
I switched to lithium and Solar panels. Very expensive but worth it in the long run for me (we boondock as much as possible).

[Montana Man]

The battery should work fine. Note that batteries normally don't die out, they are murdered by their owners. This battery is about three years old and if used like the others it already has one foot in the grave and one on a banana peel.

[TDury]

Thanks for the info, very helpful. One question, you say keep the water level up but both of these batteries are sealed. How is it possible to check?

[Andy Smith]

If they have no way to look at the water levels they may be maintenance-free, like an AGM battery, which you don't need to top off. Some are just "tricky" to get the ports open to check.

[AZ Traveler]

Note that this is a starting battery vice a true deep cycle. It will not last as long as a deep cycle. If the label shows cca (cold cranking amps), it is a starting battery. It will work but is not as capable.

[scottz]

Use the gifted battery for as long as it last; you have nothing to lose. When you replace it, look for a AGM deep cycle battery. Sound's like you don't do much dry camping so it should work fine for you.

[Mikelff]

That Optima battery is not a true “deep cycle” battery. It says right on it it is a dual purpose battery. Not really what you want. You want a 12 volt golf cart battery. That is a true deep cycle battery. AGM batteries are ok, but are sensitive to discharge more than 50%. Lead acid water filled batteries are a bit more forgiving if you go a bit below 50% discharge, but you still want to try to not go over 50%. Extreme heat and cold are hard on batteries, so if you are not using your battery in the winter, bring it inside if you can. I keep a trickle charger on my battery whenever I’m not using it. And use a battery disconnect as well. Not the one in your convince center, but one on your negative battery terminal. I am putting in a new battery tomorrow, a 12v 150ah golf cart battery. My previous battery was a 100ah battery from Walmart. It lasted 3 years but my dealer killed it by letting it run dead, then tried to recharge it. Not happening. They did give me a credit for it but it was time for a new one anyway. If you get 4-5 years out of a lead acid battery thats about the best you can expect. 3-4 years is about average. Hope this helps.

[bcrvman]

Originally Posted by TDury

Florida and its heat literally eats batteries! I installed my third battery a little over two years ago and it's dead as well. It will not hold a charge. It was an Optima D31M. A friend just gave me a battery that he had for his boat but sold his boat. It is a Alpha Cell 195 XTV.

My question, has anyone used this type of battery before and should I expect anything unusual in installing it? I included pictures of the old Optima and the new gifted battery. BTW, they are the exact same size!

That is NOT a deep cycle battery. Most true deep cycle batteries are 6V so you need two in series. Also get a good shunt based monitor and NEVER go below 50% discharge. Or get a Lithium, more money up front but your grandchildren will inherit it.

[jcurryii]

Our 2012 still has the original battery.
RV is Always plugged in except on the road.
May die tomorrow but still working so far.

[DQDick]

You don't say what you do with your rig, but if you ever store it without power to it and disconnecting the ground wire your battery will die quickly. The battery shut off switch doesn't really disconnect the battery and things that are not disconnected like the propane detector will kill the battery in just a few days. The only way to prevent that is to disconnect the ground wire when you store the rig without power. We do that with both our rigs and they each spend 6 months not in use on site. One in the winter cold and one in the AZ heat.

[Cat320]

On an old motor home we had eight 6 volt deep cycle AGM batteries, they lasted eight years. Since we never dry camped I swapped them for two 12 volt deep cycle AGMs. Always keep them plugged in when not camping, they will last for years.

[rames14]

The specs say it has 75 ah of power. A standard 12v deep cycle battery has 88 ah. So, you can use roughly half of that - 37.5 amps. That is not much. Clearly it isn’t capable of boondocking or handling a residential fridge during travel. If it suits your needs, go for it. But don’t expect much.