Increasing Battery capacity FWC

[Seeyainhelljohnny]

I’m looking to increase the battery capacity of my ‘19 Hawk flatbed. Currently I have a 100ah batteborn battery in there and although it keeps up, it requires being a lot more attentive to power usage than I would like to be. So being that I’ve never really been able to wrap my head around electrical concepts, I have a few questions.

1. Can I just slap a bigger battery (or add another) and everything should work? Or is there other components of the system I need to upgrade/evaluate?

2. Pros/cons of two 100ah batteries vs one 200ah battery?

3. Anyone have experience with rebel batteries? I watched the tear down videos and they seemed pretty good but they have a 300ah battery that would fit in the battery compartment.

Thanks for the help

 

[BBZ]

I don't have any experience with Rebel batteries, but you can just add another battery and everything should work fine. The bigger question is do you have enough solar to charge the bigger battery?

I have a 200 ah Renogy Lithium and 160 watts of solar. Our usage is pretty minimal (in fact, I ordered a 100ah battery but they shipped a 200 ah, and it fit so I kept it) and we have no problem with our current set up. Even in Winter, in Baja, the battery would be fully charged by noon if the sun was out.

Here in Colorado where we do most of our trips, the sound is strong and charging is never an issue..

 

[Seeyainhelljohnny]

Great question.

100w on the roof and 100w folding. In addition we’ll be adding another panel, probably folding to get us up to 300. That coupled with connection to alternator should keep up.

The only reason I was thinking about going to 300ah hours is that it fits and it’s pretty much a wash on price. ($1350 300ah rebel vs $850 BB + resale of a year old BB 100ah battery)

 

[buckland]

I have a BB battery and added a second (in parallel). That means a wire from negative to negative and a wire from positive to positive.
That's it...twice the storage.... then be sure your solar can charge it, if not add a flex panel. Light weight and portable.

 

[Vic Harder]

2 100 AH BB batteries here. LOTS of power. I’m wondering about your usage and how you know you need more? Have you got a shunt based battery monitor in there?

 

[lmwilco1]

Check the current capacity of the 100AH and 200AH batteries. If you want to run an inverter you might be better off with 2 vs 1. as they may be ale to supply a higher current.

 

[Seeyainhelljohnny]

@ Vic harder - At 100ah we keep up as long as we have full sun, when we park in the shade or cloudy days we have ti be more mindful. 200ah is probably all we need however the price and dimensions of the rigid 300ah battery caught my eye. I also would rather oversize and not worry again about it then upgrade again.

@Iwilco1 Would you add the max currents if you ran two batteries? This is not my wheelhouse. It would be nice to be able to run an inverter for a variety of random reasons.

 

[Vic Harder]

@ Vic harder - At 100ah we keep up as long as we have full sun, when we park in the shade or cloudy days we have ti be more mindful. 200ah is probably all we need however the price and dimensions of the rigid 300ah battery caught my eye. I also would rather oversize and not worry again about it then upgrade again.

@Iwilco1 Would you add the max currents if you ran two batteries? This is not my wheelhouse. It would be nice to be able to run an inverter for a variety of random reasons.

I have my two BB in parallel just so I can get 200A out of them for my 3000W inverter. So, yes, they add up when you put them in parallel.