# Blinking Lights



## bill_pfaff (Mar 11, 2005)

All 110V circuits are working fine.

The 12v lights and heater fan were dimming and brightening at random intervals. I'll make a long story short and tell you that the best I could figure was that the battery was probably bad which has been confirmed by a battery check at the local auto part store.

My question is, the battery that was in the camper was a deep cell battery. We are sitting on a seasonal site and do not do any dry camping. Would you replace the battery with another deep cell battery or would you put a standard battery back in it's place?

Thanks
Bill


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

How often does the site loose power?

Do you keep food in the frig when you leave?

If neither of these are of concern, then I'd go with the cheaper standard battery and buy more beer with the money you saved.


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## bill_pfaff (Mar 11, 2005)

Oregon_Camper said:


> How often does the site loose power?
> 
> Do you keep food in the frig when you leave?
> 
> If neither of these are of concern, then I'd go with the cheaper standard battery and buy more beer with the money you saved.


Thanks for the reply.

Sight rarely loses power and even if it does it comes back quick. As far as the food in the fridge goes I have the fridge set to cut over to gas when the power shuts off. That has worked pretty well for us so far. Plus that way I'm assured that all that extra beer I can buy with the lower cost battery will stay cold


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## Justman (Jul 22, 2006)

Bill,

The brightening and dimming may have been the convertor kicking in to charge the battery. When it was charging, it would bump up the voltage/amperage and the lights would brighten. When the convertor turned off, the voltage/amperage would drop immediately, and then lights would dim. A bad battery would explain the immediate voltage drop.

I would go with a deep cycle marine style battery. The ones you buy from the big box stores aren't true deep cycle and can't take the abuse a "real" deep cycle battery would take. However, they're good enough for occasional short duration power outages and the price is much less than a "real" deep cycle battery.

Like Robert said, you'll want to check the water level in the battery often. Instead of relying on the trailer convertor, try using an external battery charger/de-sulfator. The regular convertors that ship with the OBs aren't the best and tend to overcharge the battery---thus boiling out all the water---which is why Robert recommended to check the water level often. You can also change out the convertor to a better one and get the same effect.


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## bill_pfaff (Mar 11, 2005)

Justman said:


> Bill,
> 
> The brightening and dimming may have been the convertor kicking in to charge the battery. When it was charging, it would bump up the voltage/amperage and the lights would brighten. When the convertor turned off, the voltage/amperage would drop immediately, and then lights would dim. A bad battery would explain the immediate voltage drop.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply.

I agree it was probably the battery which is backed up by the fact that when I had it checked it was bad.

The reason I was asking about whether or not to get a deep cell battery was because we are on a seasonal site so I would think a regular battery would work fine.

Any thoughts toward that?


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

bill_pfaff said:


> The reason I was asking about whether or not to get a deep cell battery was because we are on a seasonal site so I would think a regular battery would work fine.
> 
> Any thoughts toward that?


Just about any battery will work as an emergency back up while parked in a seasonal site. The issue is how it handles the constant charging. I would say just get the cheapest group 24 marine/rv battery and you should be good for 3 or 4 years.


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## JerryCamper (Apr 9, 2015)

Justman said:


> I would go with a deep cycle marine style battery.


I agree, deep cycle marine batteries are definitely the way to go.


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