Community Forums

gsuders86 · 05-12-2025, 08:00 AM

My "house" battery finally crapped out. Motorhome is a 2020 and I believe it's original so can't really complain. Our typical useage is we go dry camping for a day, or we go to a campground and plug in. We do have 1 solar panel on the roof and rarely run our generator. It's a 10E541R battery. What are you guys using and have had good luck with?

Soppy · 05-12-2025, 09:51 AM

I was running AGM batteries for the house and chassis. I am in the process of replacing the house batteries with lithium and retaining the old AGM for the chassis. The AGM batteries are 17 yrs old and lasted 5 days boondocking last fall. Whenever the motorhome is not going to be used for more than a couple of weeks, the batteries are disconnected. When connected to shore power for more than 1 day the converter output is set to 13.2v.

gsuders86 · 05-12-2025, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soppy

I was running AGM batteries for the house and chassis. I am in the process of replacing the house batteries with lithium and retaining the old AGM for the chassis. The AGM batteries are 17 yrs old and lasted 5 days boondocking last fall. Whenever the motorhome is not going to be used for more than a couple of weeks, the batteries are disconnected. When connected to shore power for more than 1 day the converter output is set to 13.2v.

What brand AGM batteries were you using?

graken · 05-12-2025, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsuders86

My "house" battery finally crapped out. Motorhome is a 2020 and I believe it's original so can't really complain. Our typical useage is we go dry camping for a day, or we go to a campground and plug in. We do have 1 solar panel on the roof and rarely run our generator. It's a 10E541R battery. What are you guys using and have had good luck with?

Hi, I have had great results with Rolls batteries. 4 6FS that lasted 10 years, I am full time so I consider these to have been good value if you look after them,. I have recently replaced them with 2 Rolls 12 volt (which I believe is not really reccommended, we will see) My CTEK XS 25 expired after a few years and I now have a Mastervolt which I am impressed with.I bought a new Victron charger before, which failed after 2 months.

Isaac-1 · 05-12-2025, 07:49 PM

Given todays prices, I would highly encourage you to take a serious look at LiFePo4 batteries, you can buy ones with a 10 year warranty from a semi known brand for under $150 these days.

SafariBen · 05-12-2025, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsuders86

. Our typical useage is we go dry camping for a day, or we go to a campground and plug in...

Is this full time, every other day dry camping? or four days dry camping a year?

Simplest and cheapest will be the minimum battery and run the generator when needed. If you use them a lot and want better, then some sort of Li will perform way better. Lots of opinions and it can get pretty deep.

Soppy · 05-13-2025, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsuders86

What brand AGM batteries were you using?

They are CD batteries that I reoved from a decomissioned 40kw UPS in 2011. I installed them in may 2008.

gsuders86 · 05-13-2025, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SafariBen

Is this full time, every other day dry camping? or four days dry camping a year?

Simplest and cheapest will be the minimum battery and run the generator when needed. If you use them a lot and want better, then some sort of Li will perform way better. Lots of opinions and it can get pretty deep.

We dry camp one day at a time probably 4-6 times a year with a month or so in between each trip. If it's around a month between the trip we will typically plug the RV in at home when we get back and let it plugged in. If it's more than 2 months between trips we typically don't plug it in and turn the disconnect off. RV is store in a garage at all time and is heated during the colder months.

Mark_K5LXP · 05-13-2025, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsuders86

What are you guys using and have had good luck with?

Not your usual "what's the *best* battery" question. Frankly, luck has little to do with successful battery results. Care and feeding is number one, and selecting the right one for the application to start with.

The one you have is a nominal 100Ah deep cycle. If this has been working OK for you, you could replace it with one in kind and expect the same degree of performance and service life. A lot to be said for just checking the box.

No argument that there are a number of lithium alternatives out there, and they might work "better". But at a price of higher initial outlay in the form of battery and charging equipment replacement costs. It's only better if you net some useful benefit from it, and it doesn't sound like you would.

Any premium brand deep cycle battery will work well for you. I would offer than even more pedestrian ones would work OK, e.g. house brand marine batteries. Trojan makes what I consider the best for their cost point, so it depends on what you would consider important in terms of cycle life and service life. I'm in the camp that I don't see much point in spending a lot of money for an incremental gain, which is where many premium batteries fall. So your basic Interstate would be drop in and go, as would another Deka like you already have. How much research and installation effort you invest past that is entirely up to what you hope to gain by doing so.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

Phil G. · 05-13-2025, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsuders86

My "house" battery finally crapped out. Motorhome is a 2020 and I believe it's original so can't really complain. Our typical useage is we go dry camping for a day, or we go to a campground and plug in. We do have 1 solar panel on the roof and rarely run our generator. It's a 10E541R battery. What are you guys using and have had good luck with?

I have a couple of these in our motorhome. They are group size 31 and fit nicely in the stock battery storage compartment under the entrance step:
https://www.vmaxtanks.com/solar

SafariBen · 05-13-2025, 12:54 PM

https://marinehowto.com/what-is-a-deep-cycle-battery/

If you're considering replacing with one 12V, that would be the cheapest and work as well as the old one. If you go AGM, consider LiFePO4 because they're not far off on price, and not much NEEDS to be done to swap one. A 200 or 300ah Li would be a big improvement for relatively little cost or hassle. Another upgrade would be 2 6V golf cart batteries. No great answer because you use it so little that you're not taking advantage of the potential cycle life of most batteries. So a marine cranking battery would be fine, in spite of the info in the link.

gsuders86 · 05-20-2025, 10:37 AM

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up going with an EverStart Platinum AGM Marine and RV battery. Comes with a 2 year warranty, where most AGM I found only had a 1 year warranty. Was a little more than the typically flooded battery, but I think in the case the AGM was worth the extra expense. Hopefully this one will last me 5-6 years like the last battery, but time will tell.