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Old 11-18-2014, 03:31 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by Ela1948 View Post
Update on secondary batteries. I bought a clamp type voltage tester to be sure of exactly how many amps were being carried by the batteries. I moved the two group 24's to the back carrier and ran 25 ft. of 4 ga. wire up to the main battery box. I have the inverter hooked to one of the Group 31's in the main box and the secondary batteries hooked to the the second group 31 that is hooked up in parallel. As I suspected, the one battery that is directly attached to the inverter does most of the work. When the inverter is drawing almost a 1000 watts, the main cable is drawing 81 amps. The cable running back to the secondary cables is drawing 19 amps. There is a 1.5 percent voltage drop between the 2 battery banks. Just thought it may be of some use to some of you guys that are thinking about adding more power..
Interesting post. Thanks for reporting your findings!
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Old 11-18-2014, 03:48 PM   #22
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There is a 1.5 percent voltage drop between the 2 battery banks. Just thought it may be of some use to some of you guys that are thinking about adding more power..
Now reverse the process... while charging, the first battery will be drawing most of the charge.. so when the first battery is charged the second battery will not be fully charged as there is a voltage drop between the batteries. As soon as you remove the charge, the 2nd battery will begin bringing the level of the first battery. Over time the battery life of the 2nd battery will be affected by the lack of a full charge.

Just my thoughts,

Don
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Old 11-18-2014, 03:55 PM   #23
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There is a 1.5 percent voltage drop between the 2 battery banks. Just thought it may be of some use to some of you guys that are thinking about adding more power..
Now reverse the process... while charging, the first battery will be drawing most of the charge.. so when the first battery is charged the second battery will not be fully charged as there is a voltage drop between the batteries. As soon as you remove the charge, the 2nd battery will begin bringing the level of the first battery down until they are equal. Over time the battery life of the 2nd battery will be affected by the lack of a full charge.

See if you can take a voltage/amp reading under a charge once the batteries have been discharged to the 50% level (12VDC). I would be interested in what the difference is while charging.

Just my thoughts,

Don
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Old 11-19-2014, 07:05 AM   #24
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I agree that there will probably be some sort of price to pay in battery longevity. Although I'm expecting it to be slight with there only being a one and a half percent voltage drop between battery banks.. This system was not something that i was trying to sell as ideal but one that is workable. In my case, there simply was no simple alternative to adding power up near the battery box. Running the cables along the frame also increases the possibility of road damage to the battery cables. For that reason alone smaller diameter is better. I fused both ends of the battery bank cable on the rear platform for that reason. As I use this for boon docking this winter, I'm going to watch voltages close while I'm drawing it down and also while they recover while charging. Thanks for the interest. I'll keep you folks posted of any revelations!!
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Old 11-19-2014, 09:28 AM   #25
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I understand..

If you want, you can avoid damage to your cables that run from your #2 battery along the frame by getting a 3/4" or 1" piece(s) of PVC pipe and attaching the pipe to the frame and running your cables inside it. That is what I did and it works great. It keeps all the road trash/weather from the cables.

Another suggestion I have is to also ground battery #2 to the TT's frame with a 1/0 AWG cable.

If you ever decide to upgrade your cable (between batteries) to 1/0 AWG you may want to try rewiring your batteries differently. Currently you probably have your TT's load connected to the positive and negative terminals of battery #1.

If you upgrade your battery cables (between batteries) to 1/0AWG you can try the following (otherwise it is not recommended):
- Connect Battery #1's POSITIVE cable to your TT's load (TT's charge controller)
- Connect Battery #1's POSITIVE cable to Battery #2's POSITIVE terminal
- Connect Battery #1's NEGATIVE cable to Battery #2's NEGATIVE terminal
- DISCONNECT Battery #1's connection from the TT's FRAME ground connection.
- Connect Battery #2's NEGATIVE terminal to the TT's FRAME

What this accomplishes is that you will now be drawing ALMOST the EQUAL amount of AMPS from both batteries. Basically you are forcing the load to go through both batteries #1 and #2 to get to ground, because you disconnected the ground from Battery #1.

Like I said, ONLY if you change your cable to 1/0 AWG, as your current 8AWG cables will not handle the increased load to battery #2.

It would be interesting to see how much the new setup improves your system...

Here is a diagram, see the 12 Volt version of the battery hookup, ignore the 6 volt version

Just my thoughts

Don
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Hooking up Batteries.jpg  
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Old 11-19-2014, 11:25 AM   #26
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My converter and trailer are hooked up as you suggested with the positive hooked up one group 31 and the negative hooked up on the second 31 in parallel. The inverter is hooked up to just one of the 31's and the second bank of batteries is hooked up to the other 31. I had started this post fooling around with batteries on the ground with 8 gauge wire. When I moved to the rear rack I went to 4 gauge cable. Your suggestion to run the cables in PVC is excellent. Why I didn't think of that has me scratching my head. Thank you!!!
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Old 02-09-2015, 04:37 PM   #27
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An update on battery performance. We have been on the road 5 1/2 weeks with more then half of it dry camping. When the batteries are down to 50%, there is 3/10 of a volt differential between the front group 31s and the 24s that are on the rear when charging. As the batteries fill, the differential shrinks to 1/10 of a volt. When the batteries are at 50 %, the 60 amp converter that I have will not bring the batteries to 14.4 volts before it goes into rest. You need to be paying attention and reset the converter for another 4 hour session of maximum charge or you will not complete the fill of this many battery amps. I am satisfied that this battery setup with 2 batteries on the rear of the camper is a very workable arrangement. It takes some learning to understand that you need to take charge of your converter from time to time and ask more of it then the microprocessor was set up to give.
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