Motorhome Upgrades II

Sometimes upgrades are "Just Because" you want them.  Sometime they are important upgrades because they save you money.

Have you priced a 12 volt Deep Cycle Battery lately?  I'll let you in on a secret...they are expensive!

On our Journey, we have three 12 volt deep cycle batteries.  They are wet cell, meaning they need to have the battery water checked on a regular basis and if the water is low, distilled water should be added to bring the levels up to full.

The batteries are in a pull out drawer, one placed behind the other behind the other.  The first two batteries are easy to see into the cells, and to add water.  The back battery is the challenge.  Because of the location of the hinge on the compartment door the battery slide is contained in, it is really hard to see into the cells, let alone add water.

Being the genius that I am, I devised a technique using a mirror to see into the cells and a turkey baster to add distilled water.  It worked brilliantly...or so I thought.

One cell, one lousy cell didn't get topped off correctly.  I must have had a smudge on the mirror or something.  Because of the low water level on that one cell, and its close proximity to the hot engine block when the battery tray was pushed all the way in, that cell got cooked and was irreparably damaged.  Bummer.

When you have multiple batteries set up, they all need to be of the same age or a new battery hooked up with the old ones will basically be aged to the levels of the old batteries, leading to premature death down the road and maybe a cold  night when the furnace quits due to dead batteries.

So I had to replace not one battery but all three.  Bummer times three!  A serious "ouchy" on the wallet.

I had to prevent the battery issue from happening again, so another fun trip to Camping World where I purchased this:

                                                       Battery Fill

                                                      
It has caps that replace the battery caps and are all linked together by clear plastic hoses.  You get a squeeze bulb that hooks up to the cap hoses and a with few simple squeezes on the bulb the cells are topped off to the correct level.  When the bulb becomes hard to squeeze, you're done. 

It's idiot proof and that is why it works so well for me!

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