Golf Cart Batteries Your Solution?

Many RVers swear by the use of golf cart batteries over conventional RV deep cycle batteries. There are some good things to be said for the golf cart batteries--they have thicker internal plates, which usually makes for a longer-lasting battery bank. Since they're designed to push around heavy golf carts (and heavy golfers) they usually have a much higher amp-hour capacity.

Still, keep in mind a golf cart battery is a six volt battery. To replace the typical RV storage battery, you'll need two of them--twice the footprint--to make one usable battery. The two batteries will need to be hooked up in series, that is, the negative terminal of one of them must be hooked to the positive terminal of its partner. Then the free terminals of the batteries--a positive and a negative--will be hooked to your RV battery leads.

Be sure to get MATCHING golf cart batteries, best new wherever possible. And remember, when you go to calculate your amp-hour capacity in this installation, the two batteries in series DO NOT add amp-hour capacity: Two matching golf cart batteries each with an 85 amp-hour capacity wired in series is still JUST an 85 amp-hour battery. And yes, you can parallel wire banks of series wired 6 volt batteries to increase your amp-hour capacity.

For more information and RV battery mysteries, check out our book, RV Boondocking Basics at the RVBookstore.

Add a Battery?

With winter coming on, plenty of boondockers are heading south to the warmer climes. Solar power is definitely riding high on the list of questions that folks have. But even if you have a whole "farm" of solar panels on your roof, you've still got to have someplace to bank that power. A big "whatif" is this one: What if there's no more room in my battery compartment for more batteries?

Yes, Virginia, you really can stick more batteries in your RV. It's best to keep the add-on battery as close to the originals as possible, or else relocate all of them to the "new" location. Why come? Well, the longer the run of wire to the battery the more the power loss. The battery or batteries closest to the power source--your solar panels for example--will get a better charge. Some suggest that if you can't get them all together, then you could conceivably "rotate" them from position to position. Making sure they get fully charged is really important, because this will prevent sulfation, a killer of batteries.

In any event, you should always do your best to use the same make and manufacture of batteries, and ideally they should all be replaced or installed at the same time. Why so? Older batteries will have less life in them, and will "take the new guys out." Batteries wired in parallel want to "see" the same voltage between them. The higher voltage battery will "lend" juice to the lower voltage battery, pretty soon, everybody suffers.

In putting together an alternative battery location, be sure there's no chance for hydrogen gas (a byproduct of charging a "flooded" lead acid battery) to get into your coach interior. The compartment should be vented to the outside world. Some worry that the battery gassing will corrode the inside of the compartment--they suggest painting or somehow coating the inside of the compartment to prevent this. Well----we've added batteries in other compartments and never experienced any corrosion issues--of course, we made sure there was good ventilation.

If you're really worried, you can install your new battery in a vented battery box. Looks a lot like your "normal" battery box with a plastic lid, but a hose comes out of the top and can be led to a point where outside air is accessible. That should keep any nasty gases from even thinking about getting close to your compartment walls. Here's one you can buy on the internet.