Upgrading to dry cell batteries

[keith herrington]

Has anyone on the forum upgraded their RV to dry cell 12v batteries, such as Optima?
Keith

[gmc]

Originally Posted by keith herrington

Has anyone on the forum upgraded their RV to dry cell 12v batteries, such as Optima?
Keith

Haven't heard them called 'dry cell' before... Optima batteries are AGM - Absorbed Glass Mat - they are sealed and non-spillable - but not dry or gell.
They differ from other AGM in their use of 'spiral cells' - versus flat plates.

I've used them - but not in RV yet... Be sure you get one with deep cycle capabilities - either yellow or blue toip - but must have light gray case.
And be sure your converter/charger can handle AGM batteries.

[TyCreek]

Quite some years back I got the Blue top Optima deep cycle batteries thinking they had to be great for that price ... lol ... I found them to have very poor usable capacity and fading fast in a very short period of time. Replaced them with GC batteries the next year because the capacity became inadequate for a weekend campout. Never had another issue with 12V power from then on. To be fair however, it might have been the coach's charging system not being a good match for AGM that killed them so quickly. For sure though, even in the first few prime cycles, they didn't have anywhere near the capacity of the GC batteries they were replaced with.

[scrubjaysnest]

The Optima require special chargers and are the worst choice for an RV. Go with standard deep cycle flooded or AGM. In time LiPo4 will be another good option.