Juicy

Back in the dark ages, i.e. before the beginning of this blog, I switched out the single 12 volt battery that was delivered with the Scamp for a pair of 210 amp hr Interstate GC2 batteries. We've had six years of excellent service from those batteries, but the calendar was telling us we'd certainly received our money's worth. With summer plans that include extended periods in solar challenged locations like Vancouver Island, it seemed appropriate to follow Jeff's lead and put in a pair of U.S. Battery 2200 232 ah batteries from The Battery Guy.

One of the things I've disliked about our gravel guard is the extra work to service the batteries, so this time I picked up the Pro-Fill onboard battery watering system from Flow-Rite.

The 'speed cap' assembly was removed from the batteries and replaced with the individual caps provided in the Pro-Fill set.

Each of the Pro-fill caps incorporates a hole in the top of the cap that accepts a fitting from the flexible manifold. The caps have float valves built into them so that if the fluid level in the battery cell is low, water can flow from the manifold, through the cap, into the cell. If the cell level is correct, the float valve closes off flow from the manifold.

It looks a bit busy! Positive is upper right, negative is upper center-left, and the tube to the fill point exits upper left.

The tube from the battery manifold terminates in a special fitting with a beefy rubber cover. This connector is now ty-wrapped to the frame under the battery box where it is out of the way, but accessible without removing the front cover of the gravel shield.

The hand pump is a separate component. In my case, I ended up buying it from a different Amazon vendor because of pricing.

One end of the hand pump assembly mates with the special connector on the end of the manifold tubing. The other end goes in a jug of distilled water.

I was really impressed with how easy the installation was, and even more so, how easy the system was to use. Should have done it years ago!!