State of Charge: Your Camper/RV May Be Killing Your Battery Bank

December 19, 2025: I wrote this post twelve years ago. The subject matter pertains to lead-acid deep cycle batteries. Today Lithium (LiFePo4) deep cycle batteries have become very popular. If you have a LiFePo4 battery, this pos, Upgrading an RV Battery Bank with Lithium (LiFePo4) Batteries may be of interest to you as it contains may facts and specifications for this newer type of battery.

THIS MAY BE CONTROVERSIAL

If you own a camper or other recreational vehicle, it probably has a battery or two or at least is set up for a battery.

If you want to utilize a battery in your RV, battery selection is paramount and probably more important is the proper charging settings.

Now if you only camp in campgrounds with umbilical cords to the power grid, you don’t need a battery bank. But I will suggest that you are missing a lot by “camping” in these virtual parking lots. Get thee out into the more wild areas where there is no electric grid. It is called camping, you know – not Parking.

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Black Friday? Go Camping or Backpacking Instead!

What’s Up With That?

I live in a small town and don’t have any personal experience with the Black Friday phenomenon. To be honest, I don’t know a lot about it.

Last year, one week before Thanksgiving, I was working in the Los Angeles area and went to Best Buy the Friday before Thanksgiving. There were several tents set up in front of the store and people were inside them. I thought it was some sort of store display, as most of the tents had music playing inside of them. When I entered the store, I asked one of the employees about the tents outside. He told me they were shoppers who were camped out waiting to be the first ones in the door next week, when the store would open early Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving. These people were going to live at Best Buy for a week just so they could buy stuff!! I don’t get it.

Continue reading Black Friday? Go Camping or Backpacking Instead!