what house battery to buy?

[Charles Fitzgerald]

Hello to all, I hope you are all well and happy!!

 I've been gathering a few things here and there for the day when I started working on my '82 Spectrum. Well I need advice on which House battery to buy, it has 1 chasie battery and 1 house battery. I would like to hear you all's ideals about batteries!!

  Thanks Charles

[Lakota Wolf]

There are several discussions about Batteries and Battery banks,, using 12V deep cycle and 6 V deep cycle batteries,,,, The rule to the Engine battery is to USE an Automotive/ Truck battery, NOT a Marine deep cycle.  Cabin Battery(s) are deep cycle, also called Marine batteries, They come in the standard 12 V model.  Others here have increased their reserve power by adding MORE batteries, usually using 6 V, golf cart type batteries wired in to produce 12 V.

[Charles Fitzgerald]

Thanks for refocusing me towards searching for the info. I had searched but only scanned over the info, as I was looking for favored battery brands.

I read most of the threads, very good and usable info! I looked up the smart chargers mentioned and found a nice 45 amp on Amazon. As for as a battery, I figure to go with a 12 Volt Deep Cycle lead acid US Battery brand or Trojan for the Cabin/House and maybe a Exide starting battery. Both the starting and house batteries are under the hood, so for now I'm going to keep it that way. Later on, I'll figure out a place to put duel T-105's, that coupled with a modern smart charger, should be a great improvement over a 35 year old system.

Also, the folks who do the heavy duty CB shoot outs have access to custom made mounts that hold extra alternators. I will probably get one of those and separate the starting and house systems whenever I decide to beef up the battery bank. I will go with something like a 250 amp alternator for the house batteries when I do this.

Oh well, it's nice to have Good Old RV's to come to for sound advice, Many Thanks, Charles

[Rick Faunce]

You would need at least a four belt system to power a 250 amp alternator plus you would need minimum of 2ga. and more likely 0ga. charging wire. If you tried to put 250 amps into anything short of a very large AGM battery there is going to be a loud " BOOM"!  The batteries can only be charged at so high a rate anything over that is going to damage the batteries.