Hi there all.
We have 4 x 100ah UPS batteries in our van, we got them second hand at Battery world. They have a 15 year warranty on them and they are only 2 years into it. Anyhows, we have had fantastic sucess with these batteries. We do mostly free and unpowered sites and have not had any worries. We have a 200watt solar panel on the roof and the regulator we have is only putting in 6.3 amps. We are swapping the regulator as it is the wrong one.
We do not use generators but have one in case, (Yamaha 2.4) we are not fans of generators.
Does anyone out there in Nomadland know more about UPS battery systems? We plan to do a 12 month trip in 18 months time and want to be as prepared as possible.

G'day and welcome to you, U.P.S. as in the system you have there simply means Uninteruptable Power Supply, (or battery backup in the real world), normally deep cycle or gel cells, recent years have seen the advent of glass fibre, some dealers will use this description to fool people into thinking they have something extraordinary, it is nothing out of the usual, a little knowledge when purchasing these things could save a lot of dollars and trouble down the track, to the new players please research before purchase 400 amps will more than cope with the everyday rigours of standard free camping but the input of 6.3 amps will not, let your dealer know the power you have and get a decent regulator to go with it, if he cant supply a decent reg then find another retailer the useage of all this power will depend on the ability to recharge the system, no good having all that power at your disposal when it's not getting recharged the genny is a good "standby" I carry one but have yet to use it in "anger", people dont like them and I have seen them chucked in the river and many rows start up because of them

Hi there Dave and thankyou so much for your reply. I agree about the Reg, we have to change it over. The seller when contacted realised he posted the wrong one, its just a matter of a changeover. All good there. In fact we have to look a bit more to the hotwire from the car as we did a test and nothing was coming through. Not too much of a bother though as "Bill" is a sparky. We have done 25 days straight without plugging into power, so pretty happy about that and thats with the dodgy regulator and car not charging. True that about whizz bang shiny battery retailers! We have heard a few people on the road that have been caught out and spent near $400 on a single battery. We got our batteries a $100 each and they have 12 month guarantee from the seller and a 15 year warranty via the manufacturer. I was more wondering if other people had used the UPS system and thier experiences how well/not well have they been for them, problems the good the bad and the ugly....

ah well Bill will have it all in hand, with a system such as that you could have virtually "unending" power as long as you stay within it's limitations we only have an 80 watt solar panel with an onboard 100 watt secondary battery and we can stay until the tucker runs out thats running an engel 40 ltr fridge and using lights as necesary, we are very light power consumers

Have you weighed your van since installing all those batteries? You will have added 140 kg plus. Unless you travel light then it's a fair bet that your vans weight exceeds exceeds its ATM. Unless you have a compressor fridge you should need all those batteries. We get away with one 110 Ah battery and an 80 W panel. One reason for your panels only producing only 6.3 A is that you are not discharging the batteries much so they will not accept any more current. PeterD

HI GUY'S
I think we are starting a new revolution, you don't have to be old to be a grey nomade. I turned grey at 40 and I retired from the army at 47. But I am still old enough to get out there and travel. I have been planning this trip for the last year and it has cost a fortune as I am medically impared from service life. But I am off regardless of statue or mind. So good on you guys, you don't have to be old to be a grey nomade.

PeterD wrote:

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Have you weighed your van since installing all those batteries? You will have added 140 kg plus. Unless you travel light then it's a fair bet that your vans weight exceeds exceeds its ATM.

Unless you have a compressor fridge you should need all those batteries. We get away with one 110 Ah battery and an 80 W panel. One reason for your panels only producing only 6.3 A is that you are not discharging the batteries much so they will not accept any more current.

PeterD

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Hi Pete, we have resolved the charging issue. All good there and so is the van weight. Many thanks for the tip.

Muzza, Good on ya!! Its awesome to see more and more "Whipper Snippers" out and about.


My original question was;
Does anyone know about UPS Batteries.