Adding a 2nd aux battery?

[Vanguy]

Just double checked the battery. Seems like a mix up on the website as the battery is only 11" wide and just over 8" tall so would def fit inside that box!

[rt66paul]

I would keep the deep cycle battery seperate. Charge it at home for your trips and use the solar panels to charge as needed. It is never good to mix/match different batteries, especially those of different ages or voltages.
Bu the time these go bad, solar generators will go down in price(adjusted for inflation), you can get one of those(these charge from the vehicle, solar or from ac current).
The power company sent us a setup, since we are on CPAP machines and they were covering us if an outage occurs.

[Vanguy]

Yeah that's pretty much the plan at this point. Thinking about adding a second battery box anyway and getting a couple new batteries under there in the near future.

Interesting that your power company was willing to hook you up with a back up power source for your cpap. It makes sense I just would have never thought to even look into that but will now.

Cheers!

[Vanguy]

I finally pulled the battery box down and the battery is a group 65. Looked online for about an hr and could not find any group 65 deep cycle batteries that were not super expensive. Also upon closer inspection not sure there is room for 2 of those boxes. Forward space is limited by the track for the sliding door. Also tried installing the group 24 deep cycle battery I have and discovered the battery hits the floor of the van about 1" below where the bolt holes line up so thats a no-go as well.

So now it's either modify the box to let the battery sit deeper in it, fabricate something completely different that will hold 2 of the group 24 batteries, pony up for a group 65 deep cycle AGM battery, or just carry on with what I have for the time being. Prob just carry on till I can come up with a way to put 2 of those 24DC batteries under there.

[Twoxentrix]

Take a look at the spec sheet for the Oasis Carbon Foam batteries - may be able to get two under the van (would have to fab your support to make it work). They are 116amh batteries that allow for 80% depth of discharge along with someplace around 3,000 life cycles. Not inexpensive, but you'll get more usable amp hours with the 80 discharge & 2.5X the life cycles of an AGM.
More info on these links:
https://oceanplanetenergy.com/advanc...asis-group-31/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...ltHp4GKrY/edit

[posplayr]

Originally Posted by Vanguy

Also upon closer inspection not sure there is room for 2 of those boxes. Forward space is limited by the track for the sliding door. Also tried installing the group 24 deep cycle battery I have and discovered the battery hits the floor of the van about 1" below where the bolt holes line up so thats a no-go as well.

I have barn doors on the side, not a sliding door. I mounted the front box slightly forward of the stock holes and spaced the rear box enough so I could get my hands in there. So there was some drilling involved but not too bad using a HF 90 deg angle drive and step drill. I probably had to drill three sets of extra holes but not sure at the moment. The front box has to go forward and the rear box has to do some finagling with the exhaust hanger.

These things get more use than you can imagine under a van LOL.

https://www.harborfreight.com/38-in-...ent-69337.html

From all my measurements the group 24 from O'Reilliy's will need 1/2" top clearance to account for the stainless wingnuts and studs. There is room as far as I have been able t measure without physically putting one in.

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c...xoCsjEQAvD_BwE

[Vanguy]

I put the battery in the box without the lid and tried to get the box mounted to the frame but the body of the battery was hitting the floor of the van before I could get the box to line up with the existing bolt holes in the frame. The battery is just too tall to fit there without doing some modifications to the box or how it mounts to the frame. I did see a group 24 drop down battery box somewhere but it was like $125 - ish. I think I could make what I got work or fabricate something myself and put that money elsewhere though.

[posplayr]

Originally Posted by Vanguy

I put the battery in the box without the lid and tried to get the box mounted to the frame but the body of the battery was hitting the floor of the van before I could get the box to line up with the existing bolt holes in the frame. The battery is just too tall to fit there without doing some modifications to the box or how it mounts to the frame. I did see a group 24 drop down battery box somewhere but it was like $125 - ish. I think I could make what I got work or fabricate something myself and put that money elsewhere though.

Like she said, "Size really does matter" LOL

[Vanguy]

Very nice... Lol