Camper battery placement

Hi,

Anyone have any experience with extra battery placement for a camper? Where is a good place to put 2 X 6V deep cycle battery?


/Mtlhiace

Depends on the location of your distribution area, but on the old bus I fitted 2x carbon fibre lined 125ah leisures (Elecsol) under the bench seat behind the driver. Sourced 2x battery boxes from local caravan supplier (can get them from Ebay) and upgraded the crap split charging unit to a sensible 100a.

dont have the faintest where mine are but I'll have a look round when I get a chance and let you know where they are....

Thanks for the feedback. Anyone know what the standard alternator output is with AC? I'm wondering if a battery isolaor rated for 70 Amps is good enough to isolater the auxilary battey for the camper.

Not the best way to connect a leisure battery up and mine was a 95A. You better off with a heavy duty split charge relay or a smart charger.

have a wee look here... .... http://tinyurl.com/2eem45

A simple but effective way Using this kit would be a much better solution than a issolator and a the title says it all, "Fit and Forget". The set-up that is illustrated is a typical camper split charge system that is still used to this day.
Can't think of anything worse than forgetting to turn the switch on or off!! At least with this kit, things will be properly done.
The trick is to try and locate the leisure batteries as close to the engine battery as poss, to keep the wire resistance to a minimum. Location of the relay should also be as close to the engine battery as possible., the more direct the power distribution the better.
Switching of the relay is the tricky one as finding the correct wire can vary between Hiaces and their specs, but it must only switch to positive when engine is running, not when the ignition is just turned on.
To be honest, I would cheat and get a voltage sensing relay that automaticly turns on when engine battery voltage hits 13.8V. These are available from any good towing companies, if you look at a previous posting I made, a few of us have discussed this in length and there is a web link to a company that does this very relay.

www.western-towing.co.uk/acatalog/Towbar_electrical_parts.html

Also our very dear chap Zoochy found the trigger that will do the job.

"The answer was.... the A/C. The AC fusable link in directly below the glove box and easy to tap into."

Any problems, give me a pm.

its good to have someone in the know

Thanks every one for the feedback again.

I've see the intelligent isolators/ split charge relay that sense the voltage to isolate/ charge the camper battery. I wa thinking of using 2 Deep cycle batteries for an electric induction stove top, so may place it underthe kitchen counter since it can draw about 100 amps, which I expect to be higher than the charging current. The distance to the engine battery is within about 4 feet.

/Wayne

You are joking If youre playing with current like that, you're going to need more than a basic split charge relay system to be able to recover the batteries quickly and be able to sustain the current draw that the appliance wants.
Sterling Power Products do the Digital 4 stage split charger which comes in 3 versions, a 90a, 160a and 200a. Prices are not cheap (starting at £246.00), but thats the only thing that will help recover ya batteries quickly and efficently. If I were you, i'd find a better way around the cooking side of things, what with you're cab electrics wanting power too