2012 Escape AGM GIANT BATTERY vs lithium headache

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by Ron in BC

Feather light compared to the 8D house battery in my sailboat.

After years of heavy lead acid batteries I'm glad lithium batteries have taken over, at least for me.

Ron

yeah, 8D are like 21x11x9", and 150-180 lbs. I'll stick with my two 12V 206AH lithiums which are like 48 lbs each. combined thats 5260 watt*hours of usable power.

[Ron in BC]

Yup, it's heavy and not what I'd use now. At the time it was the only game in town and I wanted to be able to run my 12 volt Nova Kool. It did a great job doing that.

It was in a compartment above the keel. I considered it ballast.

Ron

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the only 12V 200AH lead acid battery size I'm familiar with is a 4D marine battery, which are about the size of two 6V golf cart batts (like, 21" x 9" x 9") and weigh 100-140 lbs each.

That's a good example. There are others outside of the typical BCI standard sizing. Yes, at twice the capacity of the typical "golf cart" GC2, they are also twice the volume and weight.

[Doug2000]

Originally Posted by Ron in BC

Two 100ah lithium can be discharged more deeply than your present batteries so that's unlikely to be a problem.

I seem to remember that the reason that the batteries are on the back bumper of a 17 was related to tongue weight. Might be wrong, but inside would reduce the tongue weight.

I'd just update the converter and go lithium. Once you use them you'd never want to go back to lead acid.

Ron

Ron is correct. The battery was on the tongue when the 17B was designed but the tongue weight was too high so that is why they were moved to the rear bumper. If you move them inside, I would leave them towards the rear of the trailer under the dinette.

[dfandrews]

We have a 2015 Escape 17 that has 2 battery boxes on the rear bumper. We originally started with the single box on the right rear, with a group 27 battery.

By bolting a piece of 1½"x1½"x 8±" steel angle to existing frame/bumper members, and moving the space tire stand to the center-line of the trailer, we now have 2 large capacity battery boxes on the rear bumper, that accommodate our Group 31 batteries (and also (2) 6V per each box, per my research from 7 yrs. ago, so check that!). The angle iron pieces support a piece of 3/4" exterior plywood (sealed and painted to protect from weather). NO welding was involved.



And, yes, front to rear weight is very important on Escape 17's because the 17 is tongue-heavy, due to the distance from coupler to axle being 12 feet. Since the axle distance from front is about twice the axle to rear distance, if you subtract 2 lbs. from the rear, you add about 1 lb. to the coupler on the ball. Conversely, add 2 lbs. to the rear, subtract 1 lb. from the front.


We boondock for a week at a time, and have never had a low battery problem. Our 150W. solar panel has always been sufficient for our needs. We position the trailer so the panel gets sufficient sunlight. It helps that we are typically at 6-9000 ft. elevation (thus reducing the effects of atmosphere and the junk in it). Electrical loads are: LED lighting, control panel for propane-powered frig., furnace, Maxxfan, charging of laptop computer, charging of 2-way radio batteries.

[CE Vogel]

You made a significant upgrade in solar panels, which would have solved your problem had your electric consumption remained unchanged. But then you added two DC refrigerators. Even with the increased solar, parking under trees will reduce the benefit of the increased solar panels. All this means you need increased battery capacity to carry you through your extended stays.
By far the best battery is Lithium. You can simply drop two 12V lithium batteries into the existing battery boxes and call it good, but you will not get the full capacity of the batteries as the existing charging systems will not fully charge them, though they will not be harmed by this condition. Lithium batteries are permanently damaged if charged in below freezing weather, so consider moving them under the rear dinette if you do cold weather camping.
There are three charging systems in your trailer: solar, converter, and tow vehicle. The articles you’ve been reading discuss upgrading all three systems. It is possible to do less. In your case, as you have good solar capacity and you are boondocking, upgrading the solar charge controller to lithium compatible will be sufficient. Others on this forum have successfully done the same. Your converter will still charge to about 80% while plugged in, the lithium compatible solar controller will continue the charge to 100%. You can upgrade the converter later, if ever.
Lithium batteries operate at a slightly higher voltage than lead-acid or AGM batteries. Therefore, they must be isolated from the tow vehicle battery, or they will discharge into the tow vehicle battery while parked. The DC to DC converter manages this discrepancy, but can create issues of its own. The simplest ‘fix’ is to simply disconnect the charge line from the tow vehicle, easily accomplished at the 7-way junction box on the trailer. Since the tow vehicle cannot provide much charge even in ideal conditions, loss of this charge path is not significant, especially with all your solar panels.
I converted my trailer to lithium batteries three years ago. I also upgraded all three charging systems. It was expensive and time consuming! It was also the best modification I’ve ever made to any of my RVs.