My Voltage came with 1 Exide 12 volt battery. It does not appear to be a Deep Cycle. It says "Dual Purpose".
Very quickly I discovered that was not enough battery for our use. I had to jump the generator one cold morning to get it started.
In a pinch I grabbed a 12 Deep Cycle battery from Wal-Mart to put it in parallel. That didn't work very well either.
I could never force my
WFCO WF-9875 Converter into bulk charge mode(14.4 volts). I tried all the tricks I found on different forums.
I ended up buying a
Progressive Dynamics PD-9180 Converter with
remote charge wizard so I could see what mode the Converter was running and switch modes to Bulk/Boost charge mode(14.4 volts) if I needed to. When I am dry camping I want to run the generator for a short time each morning and I want to batteries to charge as quickly as possible.
I rewired the converters so the old WFCO converter charged ONLY the Exide battery and left it connected to the generator for a starting battery.
I added another identical Deep Cycle from Wal-Mart and connected them to the new PD-9180 and to serve as the house batteries. That way I did not have to buy an Isolater to separate the Generator starting battery from the House batteries.
Things went pretty well until Arlan posted about the
fancy battery pitcher to make filling the batteries easier. I ordered one and a
Pro Hydrometer.
The specific gravity for all the Wal-Mart battery cells shows an average of 1.200. Not a full charge. I have tried Bulk/Boost charge. I have switched back to the WFCO converter for the house batteries and after many days of trying; I can not get the specific gravity to show any where near a full charge.
The Exide battery shows about 1.275 average on all cells. Good Charge.
One of my Wal-Mart batteries was manufactured in November 2013 and one in February 2014. I feel like maybe they did not put the correct 35% Acid with 65% Distilled water into the battery when they manufactured it. It may be watered down. I don't know.
Your comments/suggestions please.