Moving Trailer Batteries Inside with Vents 

I don’t understand why anyone would give this guy a thumbs down... awesome videos always relaxes me after a days work to watch this guy

Fantastic video, just what I needed to know before moving my batteries inside the trailer.

Great video! I have been thinking about doing this to our traditional pop up, but never wanted to invest in new battery boxes with vents. This is a great solution and may give it a shot.

Good idea, I know a couple who had their batteries freeze. They weren't the same. Appreciate the tip.

Slim, your a genius. I will do the same. Thank you!

Excellent idea for venting. Awesome . . . space for a bike rack! Thanks again, Slim.

Creative use of a filter strap wrench! Looked very familiar to the stuff I've done Slim! Glad to hear you've upgraded to AGM batteries!

Your videos are great. Thank you for bring them to us. All of the videos I have seen are great by you. Thank you

Excellent video. That's how they should all be done. Thanks for teaching us.

I agree. Having it outside will save u nothing. I really like ur idea. Good job.

You always have and complete great projects with excellent engineering.

I've been watching your videos for a while, they're just wonderful, and in high quality. Incidentally, I use for the video editing "Sony Vegas" here there is also a simple version for about $ 50 I also used a trailer years ago. At that time, there were no solar panels or charge controllers for $ 10. What surprised me, in your car is a generator with high power, but unused for the trailer. This was also me Problem. Here I have thought about how I can operate my 100W refrigerator while driving. In addition, I come from the electrical profession and basically can calculate everything. One of the problems to be solved was that the 8m to the trailer battery are much too long, for thin (normal) lines. The second problem was that the 100W is so much power that the engine has to run to not remove the power from the car battery. Solution: A car Relay - 30 amp with built-in fuse (or extra) . This relay has been connected to the ignition coil, so that it is the first problem solving, it is only active if the engine is running. Before the line goes on, another 300 Amp diode and a shunt (Special Resistor) for an Ampere meter were added. The second problem was easier to solve, I pulled a thick 16mm² (AWG 5 or 4 ) wire from the relay, behind of the diode, to the socket for the trailer, all the way through the whole car. There I made another high current plug connection to the trailer. Here, the fridge was supplied by 12 V and 100W while driving. You could improve this circuit with new electronics to load the Trailerbattery and so on..., but maybe it's an idea that is especially useful for campers who are more driving than staying in one same place. For the circuit in the car, if necessary, consult a car electrician. For Details i can draw a Circurit.

Great idea and it looks very professional.

Looks lie a good solution! Thanks for posting, this will help me when I switch the batteries to inside.

After many years with lead-acid deep cycle, I am experimenting with a couple of lithium batteries (360 amp hours) inside my house, charging with exterior solar panels. Expensive, but many advantages, and the price will come down. As you probably know lithium batteries can be routinely discharged to 10-20% without affecting their lifespan. Love your series!

Thanks Slim for the info and the links!

Found your channel and subscribed. I want to Boondock more now, but have been thinking about moving my 2 batteries inside, and adding two more to the bank. Way cool. Thanks Slim. :)

Another clever idea! Thank you.

Thx Slim. Very creative, as usual.

You bet a winner and it looks great.

Great setup Slim!

Excellent video! Thanks!

Impressive and nicely done as usual . We've always used AGM batteries which didn't require venting... but then on our Aliner, we never had it sealed as tightly as you have yours... Fair weather campers !

Entertaining video. 👍 Also, the know-it-alls in the comments are fun to read too.

Very nice job! Fun to watch, also.

Awesome idea! Great job.

Wonderful job!

Great video! I totally recommend anyone do this for their LiFePo4 batteries too, in case they fail and their valve vents electrolyte gases - you want that sent outside for fire safety and your health.

Very smart vent.

Thanks Slim, good one!

Thanks for a great fix 👍

Came out pretty decent!

Fricken genius. I love it

nice clean job😀

You're so smart to come up with this stuff and you've done to many changes so far. Anything else left to do? The tongue space is to small for a Jacuzzi, but I'll know you find some way to install one some day....LOL

You sure are a clever guy!

Thank you that is a good idea!!

@Slim Potatohead Wow! Your a genius, an absolute genius. Thank you so very much in sharing your video. Makes my life easier. 🙂

Great idea.

Hi Slim, Great idea with moving your battery inside and professional install, the gasses will move out irregardless of the pipe angle and gasses are only produced during charging, I would have made the 1.5" pipe slightly upward to prevent water coming in. Slim you are very innovative and possess a lot of common sense. Well done!

Great idea

great idea

Deep cycle, as well as many starter batteries as trunk mounting is becoming more common, have a small hole for a vent nipple (hole might be plugged with a small plastic plug from factory) that you hook up a thin hose (like for windscreen asher fluid) to. For multiple batteries use T or Y connectors on the hose. If the vent is plugged, the caps should be vented, but sealed caps should be available for use when the vent is used, check with the dealer.

good job

why not use flex hose for the inside venting save a whole lot of messing around.and makes it very easy for maintenance of the batteries

When I mounted my battery inside I did it for two reasons, one was to keep it warm in winter to get more amp hours out of it, but mainly to allow for two bike racks on the tongue. For the battery I purchased an AGM deep cycle and it only charges through my very good MPPT solar charge controller, even when in tow via a 12 to 19volt 8amp converter that swaps from solar panels to car when in tow. AGM's will not off gas so long as the charger does no wrong. For balance my battery is just behind and inside of the door side (right side) wheel well. It helps balance my trailer left to right, and being as close to the axle as I could get it does not impact the balance so much or stress the frame. The balance is affected by taking a 70 lb battery off the tongue, which is put back in balance by 70ish lbs of bikes and racks. On the tongue I switched to twin 11 lb propane tanks and moved them forward to battery location, and the bike racks are where the propane tanks were. I have an old pair of Yakima roof rack mounted bike racks, with some aluminum tubing they now easily bolt and unbolt to the tongue. The bikes stay low and in view when I am towing, and do not not interfere with the roof. I may try to mount a hitch mount bike rack so that when I want to leave the trailer and take the bikes I can more easily transplant a hitch mount rack to the car than the roof rack mounts. Also its not easy getting a bike on top of my Subaru Outback, the new ones are quite a bit taller than the older models. In Winter I was thinking the space on the tongue could be used for my small generator and fuel. Thus far I have not had issue with just my 100 amp hour battery and 200 watts of solar panel, even winter camping. But I have been "lucky" to have only winter camped in my Aliner in really cold weather, which means clear skies.... and 13+ amps charging current off solar.

Great idea Slim, I’ll give you a heads up after the fact; you can do this ventilation another way by mounting a 120mm x12v silent computer fan on the inside of your box ( mounts with 4 screws) cut the appropriate hole (1 1/2”-3”) & cover the outside hole with a screened vent cover sized like your door vent, run it off your battery to an accessible switch outside your battery box. When at a camp spot, (not moving) , switch it on to vent, when traveling , switch it off, the moving air flow will vent it. Shalom!

you are like the bob vila of rv's I like the videos, I can never wrap my head around people with one battery, in America they are so dirt cheap you can get a couple more in there. Im going for 4 105 amp hour rv batteries and 400 watts on top, I will stay tuned :)

Good idea, but here are some ways to do it differently. Use Flexible Liquid Tight Conduit and connectors for the bent parts, getting those two elbows lined up is fussy, flex connections are easy to do one at a time. Keep using the straps to secure the battery box covers. Use more than wood screws, bolt the battery boxes down with good size bolts through the floor. If you hit some big bumps you might spill acid, or short circuit on some metal in the trailer. I think there might be issues with weight distribution and tracking with both batteries on the same side, but I don't know how well the Aliners do when out of balance.

You might put another propane bottle on front. Two batteries more propane. Ready for the apocalypse and better balance for towing.

Hi Slim...great video.. I was curious if you put the batteries inside on your new travel trailer also?

Love it!

Just curious, do you have a mechanical background? You are very creative. Great solutions.

And a second propane bottle like the new trails have?

Great idea, Slim. I too moved my battery inside my aliner, but I upgraded to an AGM battery that is sealed and needs no venting. One concern I have is that it is on the left side of the trailer and it weighs about 65 lbs. The water tank is also on the left side and it puts more weight on that side without counter balancing weight on the right. Probably no big deal.

I'd like to suggest adding a fan! Maybe just a small little 80mm 5v fan to help with the ventilation!

Nice professional job. Just not sure though, although vented, I'd want the batteries situated directly underneath my bed.

Good video. However, working in that industry I can tell you that corrosion happens no matter where the batteries are or how much you try and maintain them. As you may already know at some point you need to spring for a AGM battery. No venting necessary, mount in any position, no aliens stuff growing on the terminals and their discharge rate is minimum compared to a wet cell.

Your videos are very informative, thank you very much. Have you thought the draft of air might be pushed back to the battery boxes and into your cabin?

Nice idea on the battery relocation and venting. My only suggestion (being a 40 year career plumber) would have been to use all pvc water pipe fittings and tee's to simplify the assembly.

Are these agm batteries. I am getting conflicting info. I bought ub121000 have 3 in bus no vents but now want to just add batteries boxes and a vent hole to be sure.

Nice looking installation but a question; your battery boxes are NOT airtight? They flare-out in the corners to allow the battery cables a way out of the box, the hydrogen gas you are trying to vent can also escape through these wide areas. You may have been better to simply vent the entire compartment under the cushion (no need for plumbing) allowing the hydrogen to accumulate in the entire compartment then vent out the top in the vent you installed.

What gauge do you use on your propane tank?

How do you reroute the cables?

I'm planning two deep cycle batteries under my seats. I'm also concerned (as some mention below) about weight distribution. I'm hoping to get one battery on each side of the front dinette. I understand adding weight in heavy tools. Kind of a good excuse to add way more tools to the kit.

nice video, but I would think that you would slope the pipe outside to allow any moisture that accumulated to to drain out side, any gases would still vent

Looks very good, but doesn't the hydrogen gas from the batteries sink, since it is heavier than air? How do you get it up into the pipes?

What line of work are you in?

That’s what I am talking about 👏🏾🙀😎🍻🍺

👍

I think You will get slightly more power out of Your batteries in the warm camper.

Thx for more good ideas. I hope you'll give us a mini update in a year on how those battery boxes & vent pipe is doing after traveling to all your cool 😎 camping spots. Maybe road conditions in Canada are better, but roadways in the US are in poor shape. Also, did you have to redo any wiring, or were you able to just reuse your solar storage battery wiring for both? Did you install some sort of cutoff switch for your batteries (thinking ghost battery hogs like those gas/propane leak detectors that kill batteries when parked between camping trips)?

Good idea. Escaping battery fumes won't damage the aluminum on the trailer body?

Can you do this with a car battery inside a car?

The question I would have concerns the tubing vibrating loose! I know you travel some rough roads and wonder if you check it every stop or not! Let us know in a follow up!

Slim - when driving is your car's electrical system charging (or at least connected to) your Aliner battery?

Unless I misunderstood you, I would have thought that you'd want the vent pipe to slope down going out to the vent. This would allow for any condensation to flow out of the pipe and not pool towards the capped end.

Very clever as always but kept wondering if water would get in the louver while driving in the rain? Time will tell!

Would you have to vent the batteries if they were lithium? Seems like that would be an easy choice.

Why did you use a 90° bend instead of just drilling the hole directly below the pipe and have it go straight up to the large vent pipe?

With the battery inside, how’s the best way to run your solar panel cable from the roof to the inside?

Great Video for sure, I'm curious how you feel after a couple years disassembling that vent set up in order to water your batteries on a regular basis? That's the only downside I could see from this.

Hi, Wouldn't a setup like that need a fan to draw the gases out, or is a fan not need.

Keep in mind balance, you adding additional weight on the side, could cause a uneven wear and tracking. I would never install batteries on the inside, I've see a battery short out and explode.

Good job Mr. Potatohead.

I was more interested in the wiring part of the job. Wish it would have been shown

@9:09 I can think of a reason, and a good one, too : .....more space inside the trailer! :P :D ;)

What do you do with positive and negative leads that are still out on the tongue?

Nice one Slim. I intend in moving mine inside too. Is yours on same side as your panel or opposite side. Could not tell from your video.

I think batteries belong outside. It’s not just venting, it’s malfunction and fire. But, nice installation. How airtight are battery boxes? How much weight on side now?

Through the years you've made quite a few changes. It would probably be a good idea to take the trailer to a scale and find the weights on each wheel and the tongue. You want to be sure to have at least 10%-15% weight on the tongue.

Nice but you forgot one thing: Outside air needs to enter the battery boxes from the bottom of the boxes. I don't see where you have provided that feature.

isn't that where you had the shower?

Now that you have the batteries off the tongue and a little closer to the axle, have you ever considered putting a second propane tank on the tongue?

I am just surprised about that RV venting concern: I own two different '80s sailboats and none of them got vented batteries, neither I saw such venting setup on any other sailboat...

Awesome Vid. Slim Potato Head.

What if the wind blows into the vent?

Wouldn't the vent hole allow cold air in?

I'm I mssing something? Why not remove batteries in the WInter and store in garage with battery tender?

Why not use AGMs and not worry about venting?