Batteries An Easy Question (I think)

Q1. You are correct. You could use a vented box in the van with the vents in the box going to outside, or use an AGM (sealed) battery (preferable).

Q2. Charging them in the van can be an issue due to the distance fron the car alternator. I believe there are some switchmode voltage buckers that you can place in the van that turn your 11 or so volts at the end of the van wiring into the 14 volts necessary to charge your battery. Another possibility is solar to top up your battery.

Another optoion may be to have two AGM batteries, one on charge in the car, and one in the van (isolated), both connected to the world using short leads going to Anderson type high current plugs. This will still require the use of a battery management system to chage the one in the car. The advantage is that you will have a spare fully charged battery, with the obvious disadvantage that the vehicle must be run fo a period of time to charge a battery every day, and having to physically swap the batteries over.

Hiya ozzy, what dya mean hook two batteries up? do you mean to charge, like Gary has answered above or dya mean two batteries hooked up to give power or twice the length of time?.

I'd reckon he meant to have two identical batteries, one in a box in the camper not connected to the vehicle, just powering whatever is connected to it in the camper.
The second mounted in the vehicle and connected as per a normal second battery with Anderson type plugs so the two batteries can be swapped as required.

Try this site. Go to the 'Articles " area.

http://www.caravanandmotorhomebooks.com/articles/index.htm

Hi ozzymac, do you intend to keep both batteries in the camper and charge them while you drive. If so instead of using two batteries to power the different camper requirements, why not just use one larger battery.

If the compartment where you are going to keep the batteries is enclosed ( not able to be vented ) then you will need something like a seal gel battery. On the other hand, if the battery compartment is located next to an external wall of the camper, you may be able to fit some vents to the wall allowing the battery gasses to be vented. Doing it this way will allow you to use standard deep cycle batteries which work out much cheaper and will be a smaller size for the same capacity of a sealed gel battery. Note there are a number of different types of non gassing batteries that could be used, I am just using the gel batteries as an example.

Next, to charge the camper batteries while you drive, you will need some sort of auxiliary battery charge control device and depending on the type of charge controller you get, you can use the excess power available from you vehicle cranking battery to extend the operating time of your camper batteries before they need charging and the additional operating time won’t cost you any more to set up. Additional power for nothing.

If you do use this type of charging, make sure you use heavy cable between the tow vehicle and the camper and fit something along the lines of an Anderson plugs on the cable where it goes from the tow vehicle to the camper.

Again, if you set it up like this, you can make up an extension lead using the same size cable and another set of Anderson plugs. This will allow you to uncouple the camper and just plug the extension lead into the plugs on the tow vehicle and the camper.

Just some ideas Cheers.

Redarc make a very simple charger for the aux batt. It senses when the main batt is capable of chaging the 2nd batt and switches accordingly. Wiring isn't overly complicated. If unsure check with your local auto sparky.

www.redarc.com.au will get you there.

ozzymac,
(quote)What type of batterieS (PLURAL) can be used in a small camper in which you want to enclose the battery in a storage are inside the van. A person suggested to my wife you could use a standard car battery, but my thinking was that these could not be enclosed due to the gasses they give off. Right or Wrong? (end quote)
Answer; Right
see above posts for various reasons, check out the Delkor range of deep Cycle batteries, as they will do the job at ~$130? each

(quote)How do you hook 2 batteries up? Do you have to install a regulator of some description? (end quote)
answer; Yes
wire the batteries in parallel inside the camper, run suitable (starter size) cable from a suitable isolator (an isolator the manufacturer actually states “is guaranteed to work” with batteries that are NOT identical to the crank battery) to the Deep Cycle dual batteries and connect/disconnect at the tow hitch area via an Anderson plug as stated above.