Guest bill Posted October 21, 2005 Share Posted October 21, 2005 Hoping to buy a new Hymer Motorhome. Is there really any need for an additional leisure battery unless of course its intended to live away in it for weeks. Does a Solar Panel do the job in place of an additional battery? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John P Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 If you do a search on "Hymer" or "Batteries" on this forum you will find answers to this and many other questions by scrolling down the pages. A Gell battery to match the one on your new Hymer will cost about £250 from Brownhills or Hymer UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wilf Nicholson Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 Bill, If you decide on an extra Gel Battery I have a brand new 80amp for sale. It was removed from my Dethleffs A Class when it was delivered and I matched up 2 acid types. This was only 2 months ago. Price WILL be very good. Regards, Wilf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MelE Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 1. The BEST solution is to do what Bill has done: add an extra battery, but do so by buying two, matched lead acid batteries of the same size and as large as you can get. This will cost a huge amount less than buying a second Hymer battery and work just as well. Matched batteries work much better than two different ones. 2. A solar panel will NOT do as much as a second (or even third) leisure battery. Even a 75 watt panel costing around £500 fitted with controller, etc, only gives 4.5 amps under IDEAL conditions. On a sunny summer day in southern Spain, you might get as much as 40 amp hours into your battery, but in UK cloudy skies, even in summer, you'll be lucky to see 15 to 20 amp hours. By all means get one, but sort out the batteries first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John P Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 You do not say if your Hymer motorhome is fitted with a gel battery (most of them are)? If you add a second battery it must also be a gel type. Importers (Hymer and Brownhills) say that you must only use the gel type as origionally fitted.(Expensive) I fitted two liquid lead acid batteries to my new Hymer 14 months ago together with a 65 watt solar panel and regulator. To date this works well and to date I have not had to resort to mains charging. You must however take the following precautions regarding charging regime and ventilation. The manufacturer(Schaudt)of the Electroblock EBL 100 charging/distribution unit fitted to most recent Hymers has written to me and state that their charging unit is capable of working with either gel or liquid lead acid batteries to no detriment of either the batteries or their unit. 1. To change battery types the charging rate must be changed. To do this a small sliding switch marked Batterie-Wahl on the unit has to be moved to the type being used. They do stress that battery types must not be mixed ie use two gel or two liquid lead acid batteries. 2. The latter will need venting through the floor with the venting being done through a small flexible plastic tube. Your charging unit is located under the small storage unit on the offside of the vehicle.If it is made by Schaudt the can be contacted at www.schaudt-gmbh.de Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Clive Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Lots of good advice above, you will always get better value using a wet cell battery than a gel cell battery and if you are going to replace one gell with two matched wet cell batteries you should consider using two 6 volt batteries connected in series. This ensures that all cells share equally during charge and discharge. We have 160 ampere hours worth of series connected 6 volt batteries and an 80 watt solar panel and regulator. As our heating is gas and does not require battery amps to run it this works just fine for us. Those with Diesel heaters and the like will always want greater battery capacity. If however you have need to keep two children quiet by running a Playstation and a TV all day then stick to hookups or get a blasted generator!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Clive Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 One more comment, I now know of one motorhome manufacturer who fits as OEM two 6 volt 220 ampere hour golf cart batteries connected in series plus a 45 amp stabilised charger in the motorhome to keep them topped up. So the question is "how much you can get golf cart batteries for and will they fit your space and available payload?" They will be deep cycle batteries ideal for our type of duty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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