Since I retired early because my pension was in jeopardy I always look for the low cost alternative. We use 1 deepcycle 12V battery and I have a second that I add in parallel if we are going to be gone for a week. We haven't had too much trouble with battery drainage. We only use the battery for the pump and occaisional use of the lights. Our '95 Towlite doesn't have a fridge fan so I use a D-cell RV fan. At night we use portable battery powered lanterns. The lanterns make it seems more like camping to us. The only allowance we make from the sleeping bags in a tent days. I am going to get a few LED lights as described in the LED thread.

Great post, captbob! *thumbsup*, *beers* (We need some additional "smileys" here, don't we?)

I bought a "Battery Minder Plus" BatteryMINDer® Plus 12 Volt 1.33 Amp Charger-Maintainer-Conditioner (Desulfator) | All | Battery Chargers by BatteryMINDers.com for my trailer on the advice of a fellow member of a truck forum I moderate. The big feature of this device is that it "desulfates". I leave it plugged in to the trailer batteries all the time when I'm home. The batteries seem to be in tip-top shape as far as I can tell.

I got mine at Camping World, but I see they seem to have stopped carrying them. Instead, they have the "Battery Tender" which I keep on my Tow Vehicle "Garage Queen" to counter the parasitic draw of the electronics in it. Since employing these, I've had no battery problems. The Battery Tender does NOT apply any desulfating action though, so I think it is better suited to something that is used more frequently.

Bottom line is, NO battery likes to be totally discharged. You do that, and you've probably destroyed the battery. This applies to lithium-ion batteries in tools and even cell phone batteries too. Forget about the "memory effect", it's really "crap". Since batteries are multi-cell things, as soon as you discharge one of the cells to zero volts, continuing to discharge the battery causes that cell to work below the 0 volt state. If it gets to that point, it's probably ruined.

- Jack

__________________
Hi-Lo 1707T
2005 F150 4x4 KR SCrew

Thanks for the thumbsup Jack. Unless you work with batteries in a industrial way it is hard for the laymen to understand how complex they can be instead of how simple they look. I just wish I could talk more people into trying AGM batteries as they are both deep cycle and cranking rated, in fact they can produce more instantanious amps than any other battery per size and they are very compact.
I have used them at work at the City of Naple on our stationary generators and it has saved us a lot of headaches on maintenance and not having to constantly have them on charge. Everyone owes it to themselves if they are having battery problems to go to Odysses's web site and read up on them. More and more companies are starting to make them, I have bought some small ones at West Maring on sale and have been using them on a UPS for my electronics. We all need to help each other in any way we can to make our RVing easier. LOL
Hope to see all one of these days on the road.
Thanks again, Bob

I have been on the road since June of 2011 and have done quite a bit of dry camping with the 2807 using 2 Odysses 12V AGM batteries in the tongue and a Lifan 3500 electric start gen on the rack on the back. Have been in every type of public campground you can think of between Ohio, Florida and California with nights down to 25 degrees and everything is working great. Someone said on the generator that you wouldn't get away with the noise due to restrictions, but in my experience on this trip the only ones quieter than me were Hondas and some were a lot louder and no one complained. I also bought a 50watt panel to play around with and it is really helping out, I just put it on a 15 foot cord and set it outside during the day to help with the charging and then run the gen every other day. I also have a Heater Buddy that I use to supplement the heat to keep from running the furnace while were up and it puts the heat where were at instead of heating the whole trailer with the furnace. Things have been working out good, but have decided to sell the Hi Lo and go 5th wheeling just due to we are living in the Hi Lo and it would be easier on us to go the other way. Getting great gas mileage with the Sequoia, average 13, 11.5 to 15.

__________________
Bob "N8ANV"
Deanie "N8ANW"
2007 28 Classic
2011 Toyota Sequoia