Category BATTERIES

AGM and lithium in real use: usable capacity, discharge rate, charge acceptance and what a battery looks like when it’s dying early. Including my own, which didn’t last a year.

BATTERIES, ELECTRICAL

How Many Amp-Hours Do You Need in a Camper Van Battery?

How many Ah you need in your camper battery, calculated from your actual loads (lights, fridge, chargers, inverter) — not a generic number pulled off a forum. Here’s the formula I use myself, with real examples, so you don’t undersize your…

BATTERIES, ELECTRICAL

Camper Battery Draining Overnight? How to Find the Parasitic Draw

Multimeter measuring parasitic battery drain in a camper van

You go to bed with a charged battery. You wake up and it’s low, and nothing was switched on. Two completely different problems produce that, and they look identical from the outside. One is something quietly drawing current all night.…

BATTERIES

Why My AGM Battery Died in Under a Year — With the Measurements

Leisure battery connected with a ground cable and a positive distribution busbar

My AGM battery is 150 amp-hours, it cost €250, and it is under a year old. It still works — and it will never hold a full charge again. Not dead — it still starts the day looking healthy. It…

BATTERIES, solar-climate

Solar Panel Not Charging the Battery? Find the Fault in Five Measurements

Two solar charge controllers mounted upright on a wooden board in a camper van: a Victron MPPT 75/15 and an SRNE controller with a digital display

When solar stops charging, the panel is almost never the problem. Panels are the most reliable component in the system — no moving parts, sealed, and warrantied for twenty-five years. The fault is usually in the twenty feet between the…

BATTERIES, ELECTRICAL

AGM vs Lithium in a Camper Van: What the Difference Actually Looks Like

Two batteries labeled “100 Ah” can behave so differently that comparing them by that number is close to meaningless. One of them will give you 50 amp-hours before you should stop. The other gives 90. One will feed a 1,000…