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We’ve already gone over some of the finer points of solar power generation in regards to 12 volt travel, but the sun’s rays aren’t the only free ride you can get off of nature’s hard work. If you’re captaining a sailing vessel, there are two more elements you’ll encounter in copious amounts: wind, and water. Just as the band Earth, Wind, & Fire gave you the energy to get sublimely funky, the elements of sun, wind, & water can give your rig the energy to power your stereo and 12 volt TV. Maybe you’ll even use it to watch or listen to Earth, Wind, & Fire, causing some kind of recursive irony loop!

To get power from the wind, you need something that can catch it. This is the way a sail works, capturing wind and turning its kinetic energy into movement of your boat. Propellers are another way to do this. The idea is to use the wind to make something move, and take the energy from that movement. Look at a windmill, which uses wind power to turn a millstone, which then crushes grain, and you will see the principle behind a wind turbine. If you find the right one, they can be a useful way to keep your batteries fat and happy. Look for ones that produce at least a decent handful of amps under average wind speed conditions (usually between 10 to 20 knots). Keep in mind that they often make noise while spinning, so unless you never stay overnight at a marina where people might be sleeping, it may be in your best interest to install one that can be taken down when you aren’t using it (unless you don’t mind being greeted with abject scorn by all around you). Another very important consideration is that the blades on the unit are delicately balanced and can move quite fast. Inspect them regularly for missing bolts, chips, deformations, and the like. Over time, these imperfections will unbalance the blades and could cause one to snap off at high speed, and the “fan blade embedded in skull” look is a haircut few can pull off. It should go without saying, then, that you should install it in a spot that precludes human proximity, i.e. don’t put it anywhere near where your head and hands are gonna go.

Water chargers work on pretty much the same factors as wind chargers, since water acts like wind, only much more dense. They often look like a large capsule with a propeller on the end, and are dragged behind the boat on a line. As you scoot around the ocean blue, this little submariner will catch water in its blades, causing it to spin like a fan and feed juice through the line and to your boat. The big thing to keep in mind here is that dragging things in water tends to create a lot of, well, drag. The faster you go, the more drag it will create, as water tends to feel a lot more solid at high speeds (as any belly flopper can attest). If you’re looking to get somewhere fast, reel in the water charger.

Dragging a water charger behind your RV in an attempt to replicate its use on a boat is, for reasons we won’t be getting into here, obviously not advised.

Look out! They’re charging! Oh wait, they’re not actually moving at all, it was only some batteries that were charging. Never mind.

Sorry to scare you like that.

If you have something that uses 12 volt batteries to power numerous devices, like on a boat, a truck, RV, or maybe a really ghetto spaceship, then you have doubtlessly had to deal with charging the batteries back up. It is also pretty likely that you have a multiple battery set up, or perhaps a battery bank. You also probably know that, when your batteries are charging, you can use a “selector switch” to choose which one gets charged, Battery 1 or Battery 2. You can also select “Both,” which will,  not surprisingly, charge up both at the same time.

Everything is hunky dory with this set up under normal use. However, an important thing to remember is to be sure of the appropriate settings for charge and for discharge. If you have “Both” selected when you’re charging, that’s fine. The charger will tend to power your lowest battery first until both batteries are even, then charges them equally. The problem arises when you leave the “both” setting active when you’re not charging. If you have a battery that is in good condition, and a battery that is dead, “both” will allow the dead battery to siphon off juice from the good battery until you’re in all likelihood stuck with a mostly dead battery and a severely drained battery. That does no good to anybody, especially if the battery that got drained is your starter. That’s a great way to get stranded real quick.

It can be easy to forget about switching selections when going back and forth between checking on your battery and going about your other day to day errands. That’s why we recommend you invest in a Battery Isolator. This neat little machine will act like a gateway for your battery’s electricity, only letting it flow in one direction. Like a polite booth operator in front of a fancy gated community, this device stands guard between your charger and your batteries. Juice goes in, and the isolator manages the flow so that you don’t have to worry about one battery cannibalizing the other. At JuJuDeals, we frown on cannibalism of any variety, including battery-on-battery.

Get yourself a battery isolator and you’ll be charging like a Beverly Hills socialite in no time.

He was charged with battery. HA! Wait, why aren’t you laughing? You probably didn’t get the joke. No problem, we’ll just wait for it to sink in.

…

Okay, you’re still not laughing. Maybe it was just an incredibly lame joke… Oh, who are we kidding, it was a fantastic joke. You just have no sense of humor, so let’s get on to business.

If you’re looking to put a 12 volt battery into a vehicle you own, you should probably take a minute to make sure the one you pick is the right tool for the job. Automotive batteries fall into 3 main categories of usage: starter, deep cycle, and marine. Using one when you should use the other will work for a while, but chances are you’ll run through your battery or accidentally ruin it in before too long if you do, and no we’re not just saying that because you didn’t laugh at our robot joke.

Look what you did.

Let’s run through the batteries and their uses real quick.

Starter

Starter batteries are called such because they start your engine. They do this by pumping out a bunch of juice in one quick surge to get the parts in your engine moving. Once the pistons are kicking, giving the proper fuel to air ratio, the spark plug will ignite the mixture and your engine will be going on its own. They metal plate this battery uses for its chemical reaction is very, very porous, as it designed to have as much metal in contact with the battery acid as possible. Use it for too long, and the plate disintegrates.

Deep Cycle

These are the kind you would use to power any non-mandatory electronic devices on an RV or a houseboat. They are comprised of much denser, heavier metal plates. While they lack the immediate “oomph” of a starter battery, they can be used for much longer durations and can be dropped down to much lower percentages of power before needing to be recharged. Think of it in terms of runners. Starter batteries are sprinters, deep cycle batteries are marathon runners.

Marine Batteries

In the runner analogy, marine batteries (also sometimes known as “hybrid batteries) are Lance Armstrong. Like Lance Armstrong, they have a good split between speed and endurance, more or less getting the best of both worlds (especially if you get a true deep cycle marine battery). Like the starter battery, marine battery plates are porous and spongy. However, the metal that comprises them is much coarser and denser, which keeps them from consuming themselves too rapidly during extended use. Unlike Lance Armstrong, though, they aren’t very inspirational, and tend to lay around lazily unless moved.

There you have it, a handy guide to choosing the right battery. Now if only the robot had made the right choice regarding battery, he wouldn’t be doing hard time at the robot prison in Guantautomaton Bay. Oh, come one! That one was funny! At least give us a courtesy chuckle. We’re trying really hard here.

If the electrical system on your boat were to suddenly (bear with us here) rise in the night, thirsting for your blood, where would you bury the wooden stake to end its abominable unlife? The storage battery, that’s where! It acts like the beating heart of your boat’s power structure, feeding juice through the various circuits that wind through your vessel. This battery is comprised of several “secondary batteries,” which are recharged by the mechanical action of the motor, solar panels, wind, or water turbines, depending on your set-up. “Primary batteries” are the kind you put in a stereo or remote control, and can’t be recharged. So don’t try. Because they will explode.

Seriously.

Now, the battery that’s powering the vampire boat in the confusing and poorly thought out analogy above is a 12 volt battery. Astute and loyal readers may remember 12 volt batteries mentioned in, well, nearly every entry posted before this one, and often in reference to cars, trucks, or RVs. While it’s true that they all use 12 volt batteries, it is not true that all 12 volt batteries are created equal. This is why 12 volt batteries do not have a Declaration of Independence. Well, one of the reasons. No, different 12 volts have different intended purposes, and while you certainly can use a car battery in a boat, you might not be getting the most life or value out of your battery if you do. If you don’t get a marine-specific battery, there are a few tips to keep in mind to make using a car battery worth your while.

First, get the heaviest one you can. This usually indicates a greater density of the metal plates and acid which help the battery do its thing. It can also indicate a sturdier casing. Next, get one with a long warranty. Many stores don’t differentiate pricing between heavier and lighter batteries, nor with batteries that have differing warranty lengths. Go ahead and get the best one you can. Finally, when you’re not using the battery in your sailing vessel, put it in your car, or some other vehicle you use frequently. Long periods of stagnation do no good for a battery, so keeping it active is advisable.

And again, apologies for the nonsensical vampire analogy. Don’t blame us just because vampires are totally “in” right now. That’s Twilight’s fault.

We’re not talking about your financial budget. The only financial tip we can offer is to buy your electronics from JuJuDeals.com, unless you actually like spending unnecessary gobs of cash for the same products elsewhere. That, and be really nice to that wealthy aunt with the bum ticker. Otherwise you’re on your own. No, the budget we’re talking about is your watt budget.

If you have a vehicle that uses its battery to power TVs, microwaves, blenders, vibrating beds, and the like, it would behoove you to compare how much juice you think you might use with how much juice you have. Assuming you have an inverter, which converts your 12 volt battery systems DC power to 110 volt AC power, you can plug in and use all kinds of fun and useful things. Some use only a little power, like a stereo or a satellite receiver, which ballpark around 50 and 20 watts an hour, respectively. Some use a little more, like a 22″ LCD Widescreen TV (60 watts/hr) or a computer and monitor (125 watts/hr together). Some use an ungodly amount of power, like a microwave. Those bad boys draw down up to 1000 watts, with an initial surge of up to 1500! Perhaps that’s just the universe’s way of telling you not to microwave that truckstop burrito, and maybe go for a chicken salad instead.

In any case, whether you ate that delicious burrito or not, it’s a good idea to calculate how much your appliances use versus how much power you actually have. Even the best of inverters tend to lose about 10% of the charge they convert, as well, so keep that in mind when calculating. Depending on your power supply and the efficiency of your inverter, you may want to double-check the owner’s manual for the power consumption of that massage chair you were thinking of installing in your RV.

Watts = Volts x Amps

Inversely, Amps = Watts / Volts

Take your 1000 watt microwave as an example:

1000 (your microwave) / 12 (the voltage of your battery) x 1.11 (your 90% efficiency inverter) = 92.5

That’s 92.5 amps getting gobbled up for an hour of use! A microwave can easily be on for an hour throughout the day if you have more than one person cooking more than one meal in it. Or if you really, really like Hot Pockets.

Lest we get too far off track into the power usage of microwaves and the tempting tastiness of their fare, allow us to bring this back to the point. Before you go on any extended trip or camp, wisely budget the power your devices will consume. The TV in your RV won’t do you much good if your battery flies away to battery heaven. Or battery hell, depending on how much trouble it’s given you.