Ok, so when I first built Conch Fritter I had this ancient Mopar truck battery and used it for about a year. I mean it was super ancient, like 2006, but the damned thing actually worked for awhile. Anyway, I decided to try the 12v Rural King Farm version, deep cycle battery (which is actually an Exide). It did fine at first, but about 9 months in it began to lose some of its punch and storage life. Over the past month I've tried multiple things to try to get it to take a full charge and hold, but it just wouldn't go any further. By today, after 3 days of non-stop charging with the solar system, after a week of charging with the 120 v battery charging system, it would only get up to 11.9 volts. Plenty of water, it was just shot.
Luckily, it had the 12 month no hassle full replacement warranty and the warranty was to expire next Thursday. So I took it down to Rural King, knowing they would do an exact trade but I decided to see if they would go for an upgrade. I made the deal with the manager to swap the old battery for one new 6v golf cart and I'd buy another. No problems because I was still in the 1 year full replacement window. So now I have the two Exide/Rural King 6v batteries. Yes, they weigh a ton and it looks like they have a rating of around 200 ah., where the old 12v was about 80ah (if that). Actually, I weighed them and the two weigh about 40 lbs more than the original deep cycle 12v.
I figure with these bad boys, the 150 watts of solar the 2,000 watt Predator generator, I should be set for a fairly long run without any hookups. So my present out of pocket cost for these was the original $70 for the first 12v battery and another $70 for the new, non-replacement golf cart battery. $140 for batteries over the course of 3 years isn't bad, especially since I had used that old Mopar for several years in other campers I had before Conch Fritter.
I'll keep everyone updated on how these last. My review of the 12v Rural King Farm battery is a NO, did not last a year.
dave