Sport 22' Adding Another Battery

[chaeha]

Just bought a 2013 Sport. Would like to add a second battery. Dealer said it would be $500 installed for another Group 24. Wondering if anyone has also added this option to a Sport recently and their cost. Also wondering how difficult/easy it would be to install myself. Thanks!

[Bruce B]

Here is my solution.
I am not a fan of the group 24 battery so I just upgraded to a group 4d.
Bruce

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f345...ons-89021.html

[etobolski]

I added a second to mine a couple years ago. I got a piece of PVC trim board and cut it to fit in the angles that held the original battery. I turned the box 90 degrees, got a second, and bolted them both through the board and original angles. A couple of small cables and the second battery and I was done. Total cost was less than $50 not including the battery. Easy enough to do yourself with nothing more than a saw and drill this way.

A couple of nicer looking options for the battery box are out there too that wouldn't change much in terms of difficulty, just the price:

Power Armor

Dual Battery Box

Prices for those boxes are $200-$250, but they certainly look nicer than the black plastic...

Good luck.

[TouringDan]

Both solutions look good to me. It just depends what works for you and how much money you want to spend.
Don't forget to change allyour interior lights to LED's. This saves a lot on battery power.
Boondocking is more fun with adequate battery capacity.

Dan

[Jim Flower]

Two excellent solutions. I would be leery of your dealer since his price says he doesn't want to help you. Since you are already thinking of battery capacity, you will soon be thinking of solar so you may as well research it all at the same time. AM Solar always has expert advice. Best wishes, Jim

[Ahab]

I just upgraded to a GR27 which needed a larger case. We boondock a lot and it does fine. Yes, we have all LED's.

[chaeha]

Novice question... What type of cable (gauge/amps?) should I used to hook up two group 24 batteries in parallel?

[Keith and Sue in PG]

We just added a second group 24. We used the same type of box that the Sport came with. It fit within the spot on the a-frame for the battery. We wired the two together with 4 gauge wire. The box was $18.00, the 4 gauge wires, $22.00 and the battery was $129.00. It seems to work well. We also changed all light inside to LEDs. They were about $4.45 a piece.

[Len n Jeanne]

We have a 16' 2005 Bambi International, and we do a lot of boondocking. Even with new heavy-duty batteries frequently replaced, we were constantly bothered by running out of juice during boondocking trips. (Yeah, we have a generator, but think that for such a small trailer, the batteries should earn their keep.)

Last year we got a two-battery system installed at Airstream of Spokane. Don't recall their price but it was way under $500.

There are several threads on batteries on this forum, and one thing we learned from them was to keep the batteries topped up at all times. Even though a RV battery theoretically can be allowed to run way low, it sure doesn't do them any favours. Our best performance comes from after driving all day and letting the truck do the work of recharging.

[riverone]

Originally Posted by Keith and Sue in PG

We just added a second group 24. We used the same type of box that the Sport came with. It fit within the spot on the a-frame for the battery. We wired the two together with 4 gauge wire. The box was $18.00, the 4 gauge wires, $22.00 and the battery was $129.00. It seems to work well. We also changed all light inside to LEDs. They were about $4.45 a piece.

Where did you find the LEDs for $4.45.

[Keith and Sue in PG]

I just looked at my receipt for the LEDs. We paid $4.99 each, with shipping and taxes it was $5.57 each, for 15. We ordered these through Montreal Imports. They only stocked the cold (blue) lights. I had come across a site from a vendor in Florida with the same pricing and they offered all three colours of lights, the cold, natural and warm. I recall the price from the Florida vendor being about $4.99 as well. I did not want to wait for Canada Customs to do their thing and just went with the Montreal Import website. My wife and I are both good with the colour of the lights.

The price was certainly better than the $15.99 each from the local RV dealer.

To locate the various vendors I simply ran a Google search for 1141 LEDs.

I am anxious to test the set up on a boondock weekend. We just did our first test run this weekend to try out the various systems. We opted for full hookups. The weekend was great. The boondock weekend should be three weeks away.

Good luck, and sorry about the wrong price being posted.

Keith

[TouringDan]

LED lights only use about 10-15% of the energy, battery capacity, required by the regular bulbs. This will help your batteries last much longer while boondocking.
After boondocking solo for 4 days, I have used less than 25% of my battery capacity.

Dan