Episode 182 – Enhancing Your RV Journey: Upgrading to Lithium Batteries

This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your trusted source for tips and insights to embrace the RV lifestyle without worries. Let's talk everything RV. And today is episode 182. Let's dig right in. Welcome back, smart RVers.

But today I want to just share a thought that came up in some of our recent activities with an insurance company. You know, we're always learning, finding things out, and we like to share them with you, that's for sure.

Because the more we know, the more you're going to know. And sometimes the more you know, the more we're going to know, because it works both ways, and we appreciate that so much.

But choosing insurance companies.

You know, we're talking about the insurance companies that insure your RV against theft, fire damage, water damage, tree falls on it, whatever happens to it. So they're the insurance carrier, not an extended warranty, but the insurance company.

You know, quite often we don't know how good our insurance company is until we file a claim. Isn't that right? You know, you call them up, hey, you know, I need to file a claim. Blah, blah, blah. Just happened.

And, man, it's either a good experience or bad. So recently, an insurance carrier called us. We were talking to a customer. We hadn't even done a quote yet.

They called the insurance company, told them we were the shop they wanted to use. They call us and start asking these oddball questions with no, no reasoning behind it. Then they're wanting to send us parts.

And they kept saying, it's under warranty. And that was really confusing because the RV was damaged. There were no warranty parts.

Then they're, well, we'll just send you all the parts, and then you just get the labor. It didn't make sense. So we're like, okay, why don't you send me an email explaining this process?

So rather than send an email, they call the customer and say, the shop we're working with Highway 93, RV, they don't want to work with us. They won't comply. They want to charge too much. They want to rip us off. Customer calls us up, what's going on? That's not true.

And the customer knows us, and he goes, yeah, okay, I get it now. And so that was over a week ago, actually several weeks now, and they still haven't filed or settled with him on a claim.

So they're just dragging this thing out, making it very difficult for the consumer, the RV owner. So be very careful.

And I know sometimes it's hard because they're going to tell you all the right things, but in this particular case, the insurance company, I'm not going to say the company, they actually farmed it out to another carrier. It's kind of a weird thing. This particular carrier is owned by a very large RV company in the RV world. I'm not going to say their name either.

I'm trying not to say some names today because of certain things that are happening on the backside. I don't want to tick anybody off if they're listening. They absolutely know who we're talking about. But nonetheless, so just be careful.

It's important to choose the right insurance company. Now, on another note, have you ever done something like this?

You decided or you know, your RV needs new batteries and it's a travel trailer, motorhome, it doesn't matter. You decide. I'm going to replace those house batteries. They're giving me nothing but problems.

So you go out, you get two new batteries, and you take a picture of the wiring and you're very careful and everything goes good and you think there's absolutely no problems. You're all proud of yourself.

You're patting yourself on the back as you walk inside the RV to make sure the lights work and things are coming on all to your dismay. And there's no lights working on the inside. You're like, what the heck is going on here? These are brand new batteries, you know?

So you get out a voltmeter, test them, they got power, and like, oh, man, something else has gone wrong. And you're kind of perplexed by that. What did I do wrong?

Well, when we get to the end of the podcast today, we're going to tell you maybe what happened. It's a pretty simple fix and it does happen, and it's in place just in case this particular thing happens. Not going to say now.

I know you're so curious. You're going to say to the end of this podcast, no matter what. Now.

All right, everybody, so that we'll get to at the end now, we ask that you please share this podcast with others. Subscribe to it on your favorite podcast channel. We're on all of them. If you like us on YouTube, subscribe us. Subscribe there, like us.

Reach out to us. We want to hear from you. We love hearing from you guys, whatever the thing might be. Now that's going to bring us to enjoying the RV life.

And we're going to talk about RVing after dark and how not to tick off the entire campground when you arrive when it's late. Now, I Think everybody's probably done this.

So as you pull into this campground, you know, you're kind of having a hard time even finding a place because it's dark enough or is that maybe it's not pitch dark, but it's getting dark. You know, you get that shady type stuff and it's hard to see. That in itself can be somewhat nerve wracking.

When you arrive at that time of day or night ever. How you want to look at that puts a little extra strain on you because you're not used to doing it.

Something happened during the day that, you know, caused a delay. So we're going to talk about that. And it might seem kind of basic. What's the big deal? Well, it can be a big deal.

It's not like a car where you pull up into a hotel, grab a suitcase, go inside and spend the night. A little bit different.

So with campgrounds, it's always good to call ahead, make sure that they have your reservation, everything's there and say, hey, if I get there after six or eight or whatever, is there something special I need to do? Yeah, they might say, take any space you want, then come see us in the morning.

We'll put you in the right space because there's not going to be anybody in the office. So we have no problem. Just get a space. Or if you want to, there's a spot over here, you can just park there for the night, no problem.

So they might tell you something like that, but they might say, hey, no problem. We'll have someone in the office, they're there till 10 and they will get you a space and guide you to where you need to go. That sounds great.

Well, you do want to be smart about this because sometimes at night, you know. Well, not sometimes at night, it's just harder to see.

So having one of those headlights on with the LED lamp on, it will make it much easier when you're pulling in parking well after you're out, you're out of your tow vehicle or the motorhome. When you're setting up walking the space, it's going to be easier to see some things and even have on a lantern.

And you know, lantern's a little bit different than A flashlight. Lanterns are kind of cool.

I have some LED lanterns that work really well, and I can just set them like, this is my marker where I want the back of the RV to be, or if I'm pulling into a tight spot or maybe my wife will hold it and that you're hanging it. It's not like a flashlight, where that beam's going all over the place because they're looking at stuff.

Sometimes a lantern will work really well, a rechargeable LED lantern. Then if you can find a leveling app that works for you, that makes it even easier. It's getting to the space, pulling through the park.

You're not going to fly through there at 30 miles an hour. You drive slower, maybe making sure you don't miss anything. You're trying to be quiet so you're not waking up everybody in the park.

Obviously, just driving through is going to make some noise, but it's how much noise you make and for how long is really the issue. You get to your site, just walk it real quick with a flashlight so you can see what's going on.

Have someone helping you so you can get into the spot and try to get level the first time you pull in. You know, look at it. Are there any low spots to avoid?

That way in the morning you don't have to reset up, and then you're just getting into your spot and getting set up quicker. If you need to even level it, maybe for the night, you can just, you know, that's it. Because it's late.

You don't want to keep everybody up or wake everybody up. And then just stick to the essentials.

You know, hook up the power, level the RV if you have to, and just get some water if you need to, power if you need to. If not, just wait till morning. You know, waiting till morning will sometimes make it much easier. Not then you can see things.

And if you hook everything up, you might decide in the morning, gosh, I'm going to move forward two feet. I'm going to move back. Really not as level as I'd like to be. So I'm going to completely move. Then.

If you hooked everything up, set up completely, then you got to undo it. And I think everybody's been there once or twice, you know, hooking up, readjusting in the morning.

And if you're new to RVing, practice this stuff at home, getting out, wheel chocks, leveling, doing stuff like that. It's a good routine to get into. And then when you pull up at a park at night, man, you're pulling up and you're parking like a boss, not a beginner.

You're like the man, right? All right, cool. Now, if you've got a great arrival story, you know, at night, something went really well or something went really long, let us know.

Go to the smartarver.com, use the contact us page and share it with us. We love hearing this type of stuff. Now that's going to bring us to our money saving tip. And this one is very similar to what we just talked about.

It's nighttime RVing, except this one's about driving at night. You know, driving an RV at night is a little bit different than parking an RV at night. In fact, everything's different at night.

I'm sure everybody's taken a road trip in a car or many throughout their lives as children, adults. And you know what it's like. You get tired.

You know, there's animals, things on the road that you don't normally you don't see as well at night versus the day. Maybe you're on a dirt road, you're not familiar with the road or the highway. So these things can have an effect.

When you think about driving at night in an rv, now you got something that's much bigger, stops, a lot slower. Everything's different in an rv, so you want to stay on familiar roads. Drive the lower limit of how long you can drive.

Some people can drive for eight hours, some people can drive for 20 hours. I'm more on that 20 hour side. I like to drive straight through.

If it's a 24 hour drive, 20 hour drive, I like to go straight through, maybe stop for 15 minutes, take a cat nap and move on. That's me though. That's what works for me. But that doesn't work for everybody.

And believe me, even pulling an rv, a trailer, or driving a motorhome, you can still fall asleep, you can still get fatigued. Just because you have all that extra equipment and weight doesn't mean it's going to help you stay awake. Not whatsoever. Be prepared for everything.

For night driving, plan on stopping sooner. If you need to sleep for, you know, six hours, sleep for six hours. Don't try to push it, don't try to be that hero.

Because a lot of these things can end up being a severe accident or just silly little things that cost money later on.

You pull into a gas station, you hit something, you're pulling off the side of the road, you hit something, some near misses, you know, all of a sudden you have to swerve around an animal because you really weren't paying attention. You're maybe dozing off. You just happen to wake up and you see a deer on the highway and you swerve. Swerving.

Pulling a trailer or driving a motorhome can be a dangerous thing. So you need to be cautious. Now, one thing about driving at night, it can save some money.

Believe it or not, cooler at night so the vehicle runs better. That's going to save you some fuel, wear and tear on the tires and such.

A lot of times you're going to spend the night in a parking lot or a campground maybe where they have no fees at night.

When you pull in after a certain hour and leave this leave before a certain hour, they don't charge you for it because you're just basically sleeping. You know, a lot of times restaurants or places to eat have lower rates at night or specials at night or you can cook on board.

So that saves some money. So you're not spending money eating out, you're eating in your rv and then you're avoiding all the traffic jams during the day.

Construction, things like that that put wear and tear on your rv. So reducing maintenance costs is what can be one of the bigger issue or the money saving advantages of driving at night.

So it's not like you're going to put tons of money away, but you do save some bucks. And like I said, the maintenance costs can be reduced. And it's easier on a vehicle when it's cooler out when you're driving.

So nighttime is perfect for that, especially on them tires. You don't have the same hot highway roads that you do during the daytime. Now here's a real life story. This is a guy named John. A guy. A guy.

Some random guy, right? No, an RV or named John. So he's from Boise, Idaho. So if you're in Boise, maybe you can try to hunt him down. No, just kidding.

So he saved 100 bucks on a weekend long trip by driving. When he, or actually when he drove to Dole, Montana, he did it at night. So. So, you know, he just spent the night in his rv.

It was not a huge trip, but everything he did was at night, cooked on board, ate on board, a little better mileage at night, had some savings. And so, you know, he wrote that he saved 150 bucks. There's probably more to it that saved that $150 because he didn't save that on fuel.

But maybe he had a family of four with him. Five eating out would have cost 150 bucks. These days. But the point is, he took advantage of the nighttime driving and saved some money.

Now, remember, nighttime driving is a different animal. If you're going to be driving all night, you might save money, but is it something you can do? Are you up to that challenge? Some of us aren't.

Some of us are a little older. Might be harder changing your routine. Like I said, for me, I don't mind at all. I like driving straight through, so it's not a big deal for me.

My wife hates it, but she goes along with it. You don't have a choice usually, but it's just a good way to go. It can save some money, but it does take preparation. You got to think about it.

You got to think how you're going to stop, when you're going to stop. What are you going to do to reduce that fatigue? Think about hazards on the road. Certain areas have different hazards.

Winter, summertime, animals on the highway, ice on the road. So think about all that. You want to leverage the savings. Don't just do it to do it. Leverage, Leverage the savings. Use them to your advantage.

So this article and the RV nvr Enjoying the RV Life article.

Boy, the other one about driving at night or pulling into campgrounds at night, Losing my mind here will be on our Website the Smart RVer under the next stop and money saving tips. That's the smartrver.com both articles will be there in the full so you can read them and if you enjoy them and share.

Now this brings us to staying on the road. So a while back we've talked about lithium batteries, solar panels, the whole package.

And it was probably a year longer ago, but we're going to revisit it because there are steps to a successful lithium battery upgrade that we need to talk about. You need to be aware of it. And the reason why is so many people are really upgrading to lithium now because lithium is everywhere.

Yeah, you can get lithium batteries for $179 on the Internet. You can get lithium batteries for 1,200 bucks on the Internet. So that's like, okay, there's some confusion there. And it's changed a lot.

The size of batteries, the shape, slim batteries, thick batteries. But we're going to talk about lithium batteries and just the upgrade process, not all the intricacies of them.

A lot of that would depend on your rv, what you're trying to accomplish. Maybe it's not an rv, maybe it's a boat, Maybe it's an overlanding vehicle.

So we can't get into all of that, but it's the upgrade specifically for RVs that we're going to discuss because you guys are the smart RVers. So if not anything else, you'll know how to do it down the road and you'll have this information corner of your minds for when you do need it.

Why upgrade to lithium? Lithium is pretty cool. Well, we're going to discuss the why, what and how basically. So why upgrade to lithium?

Besides them looking really nice know and they're stacked together and they don't gas so there's no acid in the air. They're not ruining things that way. They're efficient and they have more usable capacity and they have a longer lifespan.

And also they weigh about half as much as a conventional lead acid battery. So what does this mean for you?

This means more power for boondocking, they're going to charge faster and when they weigh less, so it's less strain on your RV, which I mean, let's face it, if you have two batteries and you're saving 70 pounds, that's not going to save that RV. It's not going to add years to it life. But hey, the less weight the better.

Better mileage, better everything else, less tongue weight or wherever you're at. Less weight on the floor where they're installed.

You know, batteries can weigh a lot and they can do damage if they're not installed in the right place. A 30 pound lithium battery, for example, that's 100amp hour can replace a 70 pound 85amp hour lead acid battery. You know, that's ideal man.

Get rid of that weight, you got higher capacity, more efficiency.

So when you're traveling across Montana's back roads, I got to put a plug in for Montana here with this wonderful technology that's changing, it makes for a better trip or it can. Let me emphasize this before I go on.

If you have lead acid batteries, this isn't a prompt telling you to go buy lithium batteries because without lithium, RVN is going to be horrible. That's not the case. Many people have lead acid batteries. In fact, many people boondock with lead acid batteries and don't have problems.

Some of them have solar, some of them don't. Remember not Too long ago, RVers didn't have solar. It was a very unusual thing.

Even in Arizona, you know, going back to the 90s 80s, solar was very limited there. It was growing, but not all that many people had it. And it was very expensive.

The majority of RVers, for the majority of the life of RVs, as long as people have been RVing have not had solar and they've done well. Don't be in a big hurry to go buy solar or I mean lithium because you feel you need it, or if you have solar, you have to have lithium.

You know, it's, it's more efficient, but it's not mandatory. Okay, just wanted to say that first. So this isn't like a hardcore push that you have to have lithium? Absolutely not.

Now one thing about lithium batteries, they have a higher energy density, so it really helps them when they're discharging to go deeper in that discharge. So they can kind of go to the bottom of the batter, if you will. They're definitely more efficient, to say the least.

Now, I know there's some people in our audience and RVers that are experts on lithium. They've done all this research, they've learned them inside and out.

And that's absolutely wonderful because sometimes the more information you have, the better choices you'll make. But sometimes it'll make it more difficult to make a choice if you know too much. Doesn't that sound weird? But it's true.

You can never make up your mind on what you want or you just go over the top and buy super high end stuff when you really don't need it. You want to buy stuff that's within your budget and that matches your RV lifestyle.

You know, if you only need two batteries, that's all you need, then don't buy eight batteries. Don't go crazy. Lithium batteries have more usable capacity, so they have a much greater depth of discharge.

Quite often it can be up to 80% more than a lead acid battery. Typically it's going to be 50%, but that's still quite a bit.

Now, a LifePL battery can potentially deliver more usable energy than 100amp hour lead acid battery, even if their normal capacities are the same. So if they're identical, basically the lithium is going to do better. And that's typically what we hear. That's what we hear in the store.

That's what our experience is, what we're hearing from RVers out in the real world. Their higher energy density really helps them to do this. And also you don't have all that lead, so you don't have all the weight.

They're just more efficient. They can charge and discharge many more times than a ray or lead acid battery.

So that's gonna, they're gonna last longer and then they're going to be. They wait. Excuse me? They wait.

Waste less energy in that process of charging and discharging lithium Batteries are just more efficient all the way around. Which what? That's what we're finding with a lot of new technology. Sometimes it's only better because it's just more efficient.

And lithium definitely fits that bill, that it's more efficient and they're going to last longer. You're talking 2,000 to 5,000 cycles versus maybe 500 to 1,000 cycles. A cycle is a full discharge and recharge. So that's one cycle.

So the lifetime is going to be longer and generally the maintenance during that lifetime is much less than lead acid batteries. You have to check the water levels in most lead acid batteries. You're constantly cleaning the terminals, or quite often you are.

Shouldn't say constantly. So there's pros and cons in just the maintenance. Lithium is better in maintenance, but lead acid definitely has its place.

Like I said, if you, if it's working for you and you don't see the need to spend the extra money, then don't. So now the what and how, what to consider for this upgrade. So does your converter already, or is your converter already set up for lithium batteries?

If your RV is newer, you know, the last built in the last five years, more than likely it is set up. If it's older than that, more than likely it's not. In some cases, depending on the year, there's definitely not unless somebody change that out.

But it's really easy to tell whether it is or it isn't. The important thing is why it has to be upgraded. Your typical converter in an RV is not going to charge enough.

So it will never fully charge a lithium battery. In fact, some people say that converters, some battery companies say that converters don't fully charge a battery. Anyways.

Whether that's true or not, I'm not 100% certain. But they say solar is the best way to charge a battery. It seems like it is. We're talking about lithium converters.

If any RV place or store can check your converter to see if it's lithium compatible, all they need is the model number. You can probably go online and check it as well. So you're going to be looking for AD at the end, L at the end, something like that.

That'll give you the clue. And if it's not lithium compatible. It's not the end of the world. Converters can just be swapped out. Like PowerMax makes great converters for lithium.

So you can just. In fact, we did an episode with Graham from Powermax in our last podcast, 181. So you can go back to that if you haven't seen it.

But powermax great makes converters for this. I mean, all of them do progressive Wolfco. Everybody does. So it's not the end of the world.

It might be, you know, two to three, three to $400 to replace yours, depending on what size you have.

If you have a standalone converter now, if you have a, a converter that has the fuses and circuit breakers in it and then below that you have the mba. So that's a circuit board that just slides out. It has a fan and stuff on. It's more than a circuit board.

That's just easy ways to describe it as a fan that slides out or this tray that slides out and you just put a new one in. So the rest of the power center stays there. You're just replacing one part of it. So there's basically two types of power or converters.

You have the power center type where your fuses and circuit breakers are mounted right on the face of the cabinet. You have this circuit board right underneath it in the same box.

It's just not visible when you open up the door to see your fuses and circuit breakers. And you have a deck mount converter which is generally in a cabinet someplace.

And it's a standalone unit, has a power cord and two 12 volt wires going to it, but you can swap those out. That's not the end of the world. That's the point.

Kind of went into greater detail there than I really wanted to, but now you know a little bit more now. Also, lithium batteries don't fit in your typical 24 group. 24 group 27 battery boxes.

They're usually different dimensionally, so the size isn't the same. They do it because of various reasons. They have battery management system. They're not just made solely for RVs. They can be mounted anywhere.

They're not typically going into a battery box, which is one thing. Keep that in mind.

Especially if I have a travel trailer and your batteries are on the tongue, you might have to get different, a different battery box, maybe an aluminum one, a metal one that'll mount on the tongue, that's bigger so your batteries will fit into it. Like on my rv, I have a Heartland trailer. So that way the tray is not big enough for two lithium batteries.

It's barely big enough for two deep cycle or lead acid batteries. So I just got a battery box and mounted it on the tongue and actually I like that better.

Anyways, the batteries are easy to access, no issues covered, you know, just life is better. Battery boxes can get a little pricey though, so you'll have to shop around and see what you can find there.

So that definitely is an option for you though. But just keep that in mind. If you have a trailer, the batteries probably aren't going to fit very well, if at all on the tongue unless you buy a box.

Now it does add to the expense unfortunately. Now motorhomes a little bit different. Sometimes the battery trays are tighter.

You might be able to get them in there, maybe not definitely measure the space you have and find a brand of batteries that works for you that will fit in that space, if that's what your option is. But keep in mind, lithium batteries can be mounted anywhere. They don't gas, they don't need to be vented like lead acid batteries do.

So you can put them in your kitchen, they can sit right on the table with you while you eat dinner. You're not going to get poisoned. They're not like lead acid batteries. So measure up before you buy them.

You don't want to buy them and go, oh, what do I do now? These aren't going to fit anywhere that I thought they would fit because sometimes placing them in a new spot can be difficult.

Depending on your rv, how much space do you have? Do you really want them in this compartment? That compartment?

You know, is it convenient to relocate them 20ft away, 15ft away, that might be more difficult than you realize. Sometimes running cables and wires and stuff can be a little more tricky.

Now also when you're buying batteries, lithium batteries, think about the warranties. The warranties vary quite a bit by manufacturer. Now we've kind of settled on Powermax lithium batteries for now.

They have a five year, no hassle warranty. They're 400 bucks. So they're not on the high end of the spectrum, price wise.

So like the real high end guy who wants, you know, all Victron type stuff, he's not going to buy these. He's going to buy battleborn, maybe XP on, but he's going to buy those and that's fine. Battleborn makes a good. Battleborn has a.

Well, Battle Born makes a lithium battery. They're good depending on the application for over landing, not so much for an rv, not on bouncy Roads probably okay.

Boats, what I understand not so good, they rattle apart. It's just the way they're designed. And we've cut one open, we've done videos on it. It doesn't mean Battle Born is the worst choice.

But the high end guy, he's going to pick something more like Battle Born. It's going to be a different system altogether. So don't compare, don't think about what he's doing versus what you're doing.

But look at the warranties. Sometimes these warranties after seven or eight years become worthless. It's smoke and mirrors.

A ten year warranty really might only be a true eight year warranty. That's worth anything after eight years. It might be more expensive to buy a battery under warranty than to just go shop and buy a battery.

Then if you're replacing one battery at eight years and you got another one that's eight years old, eh, now you're kind of off sync there, right? So these cheaper batteries, if they have a good warranty and the company's good, the company has to be good.

They're going to have to be here in five years or eight years. They're going to have to be a company you can know and trust. And Powermax has a no hassle warranty.

Battery fails in 4 years, they send you a new battery. That's how simple it is. We've tested it, we know people have tested it and their warranty works that way. Super easy to deal with.

So don't be caught up on how much you spend. Look at what your needs are for a battery or for lithium batteries. You need 1, 2, 3, 4.

If you're going to start with one, make sure that if you buy a second battery from that company, see what they have to say about that. Like, well, you should really buy both at the same time.

Or we're coming out with a new BMS in a year and the new battery won't work with your old battery. Those are things you need to know. So it's better to buy what you need up front when it comes to these batteries.

Buy them all at once or talk to the company and tell them what your plan is, at least do that. Don't just do something and then expect it to work later on.

Now also when you're upgrading to lithium, if you have solar charge controller in your system, so in other words, you have solar panels, you can have a charge controller someplace. Some people are totally into all this.

They get it, they understand it, Some people, it's just there, something on the wall, but they don't really know what it is.

But a charge controller controls how much voltage is going to the batteries to charge them up, and it's going to shut it off at a certain point so the batteries don't just cook and overcharge. Some charge controllers do not charge lithium batteries.

That almost seems crazy today, but some of them don't, especially the really inexpensive ones. So check your charge controller, make sure it can do lithium, that it's lithium ready. If not, you have to replace that.

So basically, you know, if your RV is pretty much lithium ready through and through, it's not really going to be an expense to do other than buying the lithium and what you need for that.

But if you need a converter, if you need a battery box for new charge controller, you know, you could be spending 4 or 5, $600, $700 to do this upgrade. So you have to know that up front, that's going to be part of the cost of upgrading to lithium. Now, granted, once that's done, it's done.

You have all new components, a new converter, new charge controller.

If your charge controller is 4, 5, 6 years old, you're probably better off with a new one anyways because it's going to be modernized, more up to date. It's going to be the cat's meow. Bluetooth ready, give you another hobby. You can look at everything on your phone all day long.

Wow, look at that, it's charging. Wow, look at that not charging. I only laugh and kind of mock the apps for phones because society has a serious problem with looking at phones.

And then when we have these apps, we can let them become hobbies where now we're just looking at the app all day. See our batteries are doing, looking at the cameras inside our rv. Oh, look, I have this thing that shuts off my water.

I want to monitor my water system. It can go on and on and on. That's not what RVing is about. If it's charging, let it charge. Maybe check it once a day if you got concerns.

The smart RVers get it set up right and don't worry about it. Check it periodically just to make things are working so you're not facing a major problem that you could avoid.

Now, lithium batteries, because they charge differently. And this is important for people with newer vehicles. A lot of newer vehicles have digital alternators on them and in.

They don't understand a second set of batteries or a second battery period. So if you're going to put lithium batteries in your trailer, let's say, or even a motorhome.

And you're going to be depending on it to charge the batteries while you drive. You really want to install a DC to DC charger on your vehicle. That way it'll properly charge the batteries, the lithium batteries.

It'll even work for lead acid batteries. You just have to make sure it's made for lead acid batteries.

And you put a second battery in or from the factory, it comes with a second battery. Well, they set it up to charge that second battery.

If it doesn't have a second battery and you put it in there, maybe you want an auxiliary battery for some reason in that truck, it's not going to charge it right because it's not going to see that battery. The computer is going to get all confused, what's going on here. So it'd be the same with a trailer too.

It sees that second set of batteries is back there and it's not going to charge it correctly unless it was set up from the factory. So those are things you'll have to look at your vehicle. Will it be able to do this? If not, a DC to DC charger might be your next step there.

So it's going to depend on your vehicle. Check with the dealership, check with the manufacturer.

You know, when you're, when you're doing this stuff, when you're installing your lithium batteries, definitely look to see what the manufacturer of the battery suggests, how to do it, what things you may or may not have to do. You know, you need to know, because I'm not going to say all lithium batteries are the same.

A manufacturer might make theirs a little bit different because their primary application is for this, it'll work for that. So they might say, well, when you do it that way, you need to have this installed.

Maybe you need a shunt, maybe you need a this or that, a fuse someplace. Check with the manufacturer. Mixing and maxing. Mixing and matching lithium batteries or components is not advised.

Lithium batteries, I should say, stick with the same brand of batteries. Even the same date stamp is good.

But now, as far as components go, it doesn't matter all that much if you have a, let's say a go power charge controller to control the charge. And then you have brand X lithium batteries. And up on the roof you have brand Y Solar panels, it's not going to make a difference.

In many Smaller systems on RVs are put together that way. People are buying it that, hey, these are the panels I like.

This company that makes these panels doesn't really have a charge controller that I like that'll work for my RV or my application. So I'm going to get this brand over here. That's okay. It's not the end of the world. It's not going to make things malfunction. So don't think that way.

Get what works for your system, and smaller systems generally are that way. You know, the inverter is not the same brand as everything else, and it just goes that way.

Now, some of the larger systems, as I said earlier, you know, the, the guy who likes technology, the guy who has the money, the guy who really understands this stuff and he gets it. Because sometimes the things that we think we can't do, you can do.

Because the company who makes that product, they make it kind of one way and they don't think outside the box. A guy who has a lot of experience with solar electric, electric components, he might say, well, this is the one I want.

And they say I can't do it for this, but I know I can if I put part A on here, that'll make it work. But typically they have systems that are like all Victron.

Let's say everything's going to be Victron, or maybe it's all Go power, maybe it's all Samlex. It just depends. The inverter, the panels, the charge controller. They even buy their battery cables from them. They buy everything from them.

It's like a package that's great and there's nothing wrong with that. Especially like a Victron system or even Renogy.

You know, when everything's made together and you're talking to the company, sometimes it's easier for them to understand because it's all their products.

Now, if you have a, let's say Go Power charge controller, but you have Renogy solar panels and you're talking to Go Power, they might make it a little harder for you to diagnose a problem with your charge controller because you don't have the. Their panels, they might say something like, well, we don't. We're not familiar with Renogy's panels and their technology, so we don't know.

And it's kind of a. An easy way out to get out of the conversation. I'm not saying that's what Go Power does. I just use them as an example.

Go Power is actually a pretty good company. Buy what works for you. If you can buy a full on system, everything's the same like all Victron, go ahead and do it. You can't go wrong with that.

If it's all renogy, which is, you know, a little priceless than Victron, go with that. I don't think you can go wrong with it. So just buy what works. Works for you though. Now there's a woman named Sarah who owns an rv. She's into it.

So she bought herself or she had a Group 27 AGM battery and she upgraded to 100amp hour Battleborn lithium battery. See Battleborn's out there and she replaced her older converter with a newer converter.

It happened to be a progressive dynamics and then she had to also get a new MP or a new charge controller, MPPT controller and it all worked together. See it's different brands but it all came together. Now the batteries required a custom tray but she's able to get that taken care of.

And now she's able to go out boondocking and she has 400 watts of solar so that works out great for her. So she's saving on everything she did, right? I mean she has her initial cost but she's able to boondock not seen at RV parks.

She improved her RV lifestyle so she loves it. And you know, that's kind of the typical thing. People that go to solar have no regrets. When it's installed properly, everything's hooked up properly.

And that's probably one of the weakest links of solar. I meant lithium. Lithium with solar. But quite often things battery connections are poor, wire connections are poor.

I shouldn't say quite often, but those can be the problems. The equipment generally isn't the problem, it's just the quality of the installation.

So if you can't do it yourself, have someone do it who's experienced with it, someone who's going to run those cables properly, make sure those crimps are good, wires are good, all that fun stuff. So you can really enjoy that new upgrade to lithium. So if you need any help with that, you can certainly call us at Highway 93 RV.

That's our brick and mortar business.

For the Smart RVer, you can go by x.com we have a channel there or on YouTube we've always got stuff coming out but this full article will be on our website@thesmartrver.com we'd be able to read more about it. Again, if you have questions, you can check with us. You can check with Other people. There's a lot of experts out there doing solar.

And I mean experts. I'm not being sarcastic. There's a lot of people doing solar, but there's a lot of experts out there that love sharing their insights with others.

So don't just buy. Buy it like on your own. Make sure you buy it with some knowledge about what you truly need, what you truly need.

Some guys that love a certain brand, they might just push that brand on you no matter what. That's not the guy you want to talk to. You want to talk to the guy that's going to help you build the system for you for your RV and your budget.

So we've gone on long enough about that. So now that's going to bring us to the next stop and we are going to talk about four different cities near Bodie. Ghost town.

So these four cities, had to find them here on my notes, can't remember them, is Bishop, California, Bridgeport, California, Mammoth Lakes, California and Gardnerville, Nevada. So they are all around or near Bodie now. Bodie is going to be what we talk about next in our shadows of the past. Towns that once were.

These four towns make great spots to hang out and do day trips from there. And all of them are conveniently located to Bodie. So that makes it the perfect base, the home base to plan your trips.

And this is a awesome part of California. This is Northern California. And you know, we've done a next stop on, on Mammoth and Bishop in the past.

Not Bridgeport or Gardnerville, but Bishop and Mammoth. Both of these cities are absolutely awesome. Gardnerville is pretty cool. Bridgeport, something about Bridgeport.

I love Bridgeport, except buying gas there. It's always like $9 million more than any place else in the world per ounce. Okay, that's a little exaggeration there.

But it's always expensive on their fuel. Something about it. I like these little towns anyway, so they always have a soft spot in my heart.

So all four of them have conveniences that are great for RVers. They have an RV park or two or three. They have places to shop, places to get fuel, places to get propane.

They're cool places to just hang out for a day, a few days, a week, a month, whatever your travel plans will allow. Each of them have their own unique things that are truly unique unto themselves. So planning a trip to one of these places is definitely worthwhile.

So that's Bishop, Bridgeport, and Mammoth Lakes, California and Gardnerville, Nevada. Any one of these four cities, or all four, I would go check them all out. If you're up there, they're not that far apart from each other.

That would be a great one, two or three or four day trip.

Spend a day at each place and then, you know, fit in some other things like Bodie, you know, look at a map and figure, I'm going to go here, I'm going to hit Bodhi while I'm there. Then I'm going to go here and I'm going to do this, do that. The other thing, you have Monolithic Lake up there.

You have that drive on the Highway 395 to California is absolutely stunning. It's amazing. There's a lot to see. So this will be much more in depth on the website. The next stop, exploring four cities near Bodie ghost town.

Well, I'm just having the hardest time talking today. This is really getting ridiculous, man. Oh, well, I'll just deal with it. Right? Okay.

So now that's going to take us to shadows of the past, towns that once were. So we're going to do a little reading, as we always do. We try to make it dramatic, add some flavor and flair to it.

And Bodie Ghost Town is definitely a place you have to go see. It's an amazing place. If you like ghost towns, especially ones that are abandoned, they're not a living ghost town today. That's still a city.

They're just like Bodie, like one day. Every left is what it looks like, and it's been very well preserved. You have to see it to really understand it.

So this is on the eastern side of the Sierras. It's a man. It's just one of those places you got to go and check out. So this town basically has been frozen in time, like I said.

The standard mine churned out ore while the air thundered with stamp mills. But beneath, beneath the glitter, lawlessness reigned. Gunfights flared and fires consumed dreams. The population dwindled as gold veins ran dry.

Thirty structures whispering tales of miners, merchants and children who once called it home. The Methodist church looms, its steeple piercing the sky, while the old school house holds desks etched with forgotten names.

RVers, you can drive the 13 mile dirt road from Highway 395. Bumpy, yes, but worth it. But beware of the curse, locals say taken a relic, be it a nail or a bottle, brings misfortune.

Return what you find, or Bodhi's spirits may follow you home. As dust falls, the wind carries their voices, a reminder of a town that once was. All right, so that's Bodie, ghost town in California.

Now that's a place you got to go. Got to go like that. So it's definitely worth the trip there. Bodie is really cool. As I said, it's a wonderful place.

That entire area around Bishop, Mammoth, Bridgeport, even Gardnerville, it's just amazing what's there. And you know that Bodie is just one part of it. There's so much to it. So check that out. Put that on your schedule.

Go to Bodie when you have the time, or visit one of the four cities that we talked about. Now that's going to bring us to RV envy. And today we're going to talk about that trailer jack upgrade.

So how to upgrade to a trailer, electronic trailer jack and why you should.

So if you have a manual tongue jack on your travel trailer, you know, a lot of cargo trailers, utility trailers, have manual tongue jacks and that's fine. They usually don't have batteries. And so the manual tongue jack makes sense.

But on a travel trailer, it makes absolute no sense to have a manual tongue jack. And today, amazingly enough, there's a fair amount of them that still come with a manual tongue jack.

It's amazing to me because they're a waste of time, they're inconvenient, they're inefficient, they basically suck. There's no reason for it on a travel trailer. Even these little small ones that are like a tab trailer that's, you know, 15ft long. Why bother now?

Well, as I say that some of those trailers are so small and light that it'd probably be quicker to use a manual jack. Okay, so maybe there's a place for some manual jacks on tongue trailer or on travel trailers. And, you know, it's basically travel trailers.

It's not fifth wheels, it's not motorhome. So if you have a fifth wheel or motorhome, this doesn't apply to you, but maybe you have a friend who does. So you need to talk to them about it.

You know, be the word for Us force them into it. Peer pressure, high pressure. Sales pitches. Buy them a tongue jack for their next whatever as a gift. A manual tongue jack?

Yeah, they work, but they're a hassle, especially for people with arthritis, back problems, getting a little older in years. Sometimes it can just wear you out. A lot of extra work and it's not always worth it.

In fact, some people, you know, they can get hurt doing it because they just don't have the strength. And they're pushing so hard on that jack to do it. And they don't have lights on manual jacks. So you have no light there if it's dark out at night.

So it's real easy to upgrade. You know, the hardest part of this is just buying the jack and shelling out the money to do it. The upgrade is easy.

So what you do need to know though is the weight of your trailer, the loaded weight, and that tells us the tongue weight. Generally, the tongue weight is 10 to 15% of the trailer weight. Most people go by 10%. I think it's just an easier number to do. In your head.

You got an 8,000 pound trailer, then you got an 800 pound tongue weight. See how easy that is? Not hard at all.

So the one thing you don't want to do though is buy an electric tongue jack that's below your tongue weight or right at it. Always try to go up some. The price sometimes is not that much more.

To get a tongue jack that maybe has a thousand more pounds of tongue weight, you know, might be 25, might be $50, depending on the brand. And I would stick with a mainstream brand that you can get at an RV store. None of this jungle website stuff where you can save $300 on a tongue jack.

They're just so cheap, they're almost giving it to you. When it breaks, you have no support. You won't be able to get parts. No one's going to want to talk to you about.

They're just going to sell you a new one, cut and dry, no Warranty, no nothing. 30 days are up. Tough beans. So buy it from a regular RV store or from a legitimate RV online retailer.

Someone who is going to be there for you that's going to actually help you with a warranty issue or if it breaks right out of the box, doesn't work, they're going to help you immediately back to the installation. You just figure out what you need. 10% of your tongue weight, 10 to 15% of the weight of the trailer is your tongue weight.

Then choose a jack that Fits that capacity. All you need are basic tools, A wrench or a socket, some wire cutters, crimper, an inline fuse holder maybe.

Generally the jacks come with everything but the tools. They have all the hardware.

Make sure you put your trailer on the ball, hitch it to your tow vehicle or put it on a jack so when you take off that tongue jack, the trailer is not going to land on your feet. I say that and it sounds ridiculous, but sometimes people get in a hurry.

Maybe they have an impact wrench to take the bolts out, you know, a battery powered one. And they pull them out so quick. Don't even think about what's happening. All of a sudden that tongue of the trailer is on the ground.

Maybe not literally on their feet, but you could actually do that. So put it on a jack or put it on your vehicle, hitch it up and then you can pull that jack out and not worry about a thing.

Pull out the manual jack, three bolts. Put your new jack in, three bolts and a wire. So it's going to be a little bit more than three bolts with that wire.

Sometimes running the wire to the battery can be a little bit of a choreography. If it already had a wire, maybe you can tie into the other one and maybe it already has a fuse.

But follow the instructions that come with the tongue jack.

You know, it's maybe a half hour job to do, maybe 45 minutes, maybe an hour if you're really slow or taking your time after you get it installed, test it, make sure it works right. Don't just assume it does. Make sure it works well. You have to use it anyways to get it off the back of your tow vehicle.

Make sure it goes up and down so you're out on the road, you don't have a problem right away. Make sure it's not going to blow the fuse because you did something wrong or put in the wrong fuse.

Now one thing I recommend is to take care of this tongue jack. Put a cover on it. So many modern tongue jacks, they say they're waterproof. Watertight. They have this IP65 rating. I still say put a cover on them.

There are some brands where the switches will warp out of shape. The touchpad will warp out of shape because the sun's cooking it. Just get it cover, put it on there.

Something that's waterproof going to keep the sun off of it. Doesn't matter what it is. Buy one, make one, get a piece of vinyl, wrap it around there, do whatever but cover it. That's the biggest thing.

Some people Use buckets. I'm not a fan of buckets, but hey, if that's all you got, that works. And occasionally test the override in the system too.

Make sure you can crank it up manually. That sooner or later you'll have to use that option when the thing fails on you, because it will fail eventually.

So buying these tongue jacks, it's a blessing. You'll love it. A small investment for how much you're going to gain, especially if you have problems with, with arthritis, back problems, pain.

Okay, so now that's bringing us to the end of RV envy. So subscribe to our website, our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're trying to build subscribers.

We want more people to know about what we're doing. Share it with others.

If you have ideas to help us share this podcast or the videos we produce on YouTube, let us know, you know, if it's whatever it might be. Sometimes RVers are really in the know on places to share information. Like they're part of a club, an association. We'd like to know about that.

If we can do something for that club or association. We're open to anything. We're the easy to get along with guys. All right? Very easy.

Okay, now let's go back to that battery installation we were talking about earlier. You know, you put in those two new batteries. Oh, they're so pretty and nice.

Maybe they're lithium batteries, but now none of the 12 volt stuff works inside your trailer or your motorhome. The battery switch is on, everything seems to be okay, but nothing works. You're like, wow, ever since I did the batteries.

So you're a little perplexed. I want to say all or I want to say most, but on I'm going to say all converters today that are in RVs, they have one or two fuses on them.

Generally they're 30 or 40amps. More often there's two fuses than one. And those fuses are just for that scenario.

You replace your batteries and maybe in the process you shorted out the positive battery cable. Somehow you did that. A wire, something happened. You hooked the hit the bottom positive battery cable on the ground post on the battery.

Accidentally, you got a small spark. Didn't really think much of it. Well, that would blow the fuses on the converter. Those fuses are there for that reason.

In case you hook the converter up backwards that way or the batteries backwards that way you don't ruin the converter. Hey, so that's some good thinking, right? Finally, a manufacturer made something worthwhile. Nah, that sounds kind of sarcastic. But you know what?

Sometimes manufacturers miss the boat. But converter manufacturers are on it, so we want to applaud them for their being ahead of the curve because they know these things happen.

So that's what can happen if you install two new batteries and nothing works on the inside. After you're done, check the fuses on the converter. Some converters you might have to find.

Some might be right up in the open like on the side of a cabinet, like I've said earlier. But either way, check the fuses. All right, everybody.

So I want to thank you for coming by today, listening to the show, watching the show, ever how you're digesting this. We appreciate everything you do for us, likes, the subscribes, the reaching out to us, the questions, the calls. We love it. Keep it coming.

This is Eric Stark with the Smart RVer podcast, your go to guide for smart RVing and unforgettable adventures on the open road.