It seems the time has come to replace my Scamp Battery. It's been a little low lately and just now, mid-trip, it started beeping at me and dropping consistently. I was wondering about an upgrade to a Lithium battery.
was wondering what you'd recommend and if it would be plug&play?
Until, I'm going to hook up a generator and try to get some charge on it to get me through the next couple of days. If I do this, does the DC switch need to be on to get the charge or will it charge it either way?
Thanks!
If your Scamp is more than 10 years old, the converter/charger is not designed to handle lithium batteries. A new converter/charger for lithium, AGM, and lead acid batteries is $200 from Scamp. Otherwise, a quick fix is a new deep cycle marine battery.
I upgraded to a lithium battery a year and a half ago and have found my battery life has greatly improved. I went with a LiTime 100 Ah self-heating battery. Even though it is "self-heating", I moved the battery to the inside of the trailer to keep it warmer. We run lights, the fan, and the water pump as well as charging our phones/devices and that easily gets us through two nights w/o recharging (haven't been on a longer trip yet). As mentioned, you will have to upgrade your converter as well - I ordered that directly from Scamp to make sure I got the right one. Switching out the converter was not difficult.
You mentioned hooking up a generator. Just checking that on shore power the converter is in fact charging the battery.
Agreed with everybody here. If your power converter is not designed for AGM/Lithium batteries stick to lead batteries. Deep cycle marine batteries allow you to empty the battery completely without damaging it. Non deep cycle batteries are designed to be constantly recharged, like in a car for instance. In a trailer however, it isnt constantly maintained by an alternator.
2001-16' Scamp