Another battery question.

[zuley]

We have just taken delivery of our new 23RB. During the negotiation process I had a second group 27 battery added and wired parallel. In our past lives as pop up campers I carried a second battery with me and always had the second battery hooked up to our 30w solar panel. Every three or four days I would flip the batteries and switch the used up battery from the pup to the solar panel. This seemed to work quite well as we boon dock at our preferred provincial park and go for 23 days at a time. My question is; with having the two 27's in parallel will this double the amp hours available which certainly makes sense or would I still be better to run one battery at a time? If I was to keep both hooked up to the trailer and hook the solar panel will they take on a charge equally if the solar panel is only hooked up to one battery? My instinc is telling me to do the same as I have previous and run battery at a time with the back up hooked to the solar panel.
Thanks all. This site is wealth of knowledge.

[Bluewater]

Yes you will double your amp hours with the pair. If you wish to use one at a time you should intall a battery switch made for that purpose..sure make it easier. i run a pair of group 31 deep cycle with a solar panel--80 amp--and it works fine for me.

[SteveC7010]

We have just taken delivery of our new 23RB. During the negotiation process I had a second group 27 battery added and wired parallel. In our past lives as pop up campers I carried a second battery with me and always had the second battery hooked up to our 30w solar panel. Every three or four days I would flip the batteries and switch the used up battery from the pup to the solar panel. This seemed to work quite well as we boon dock at our preferred provincial park and go for 23 days at a time. My question is; with having the two 27's in parallel will this double the amp hours available which certainly makes sense or would I still be better to run one battery at a time? If I was to keep both hooked up to the trailer and hook the solar panel will they take on a charge equally if the solar panel is only hooked up to one battery? My instinc is telling me to do the same as I have previous and run battery at a time with the back up hooked to the solar panel.
Thanks all. This site is wealth of knowledge.
I have a pair of group 24's on a battery switch. We tend to leave them both on and recharge through the on-board charger with a generator when dry camping. I don't think using solar would be any different so if you don't have a switch or don't want to have swap the solar connection back and forth, you'd be fine to just connect the solar charger so that both batteries are recharged together. As long as the batteries are both in good shape, they should take charges just fine.

[f6bits]

A regular two-battery switch just routes power from the batteries to your trailer. You'll have to come up with a different switch setup to route power from your solar panel to the desired battery.

Going for simplicity, I'd leave both batteries hooked up all the time, with full-time solar. The solar will help provide trailer power when needed, and charge the batteries during low power demand times.

The only reason I'd use a battery switch was if I wanted to save one battery as an emergency backup.

[Festus2]

We have two 6v Trojans which we can keep charged using our solar panel. Because they are 6v's, I can't charge just one and use the other but our solar panel can produce 6-8 amps under regulation and optimum conditions which is enough to keep the batteries up.

I don't see any reason why you can't pair the batteries and use your solar panel to charge both of them up at the same time.

[zuley]

Thank you!!