Drew Callahan · July 29, 2026
A battery monitor is only as honest as its shunt wiring. The one rule that decides whether your state-of-charge reading means anything, and the programming steps people skip.
Drew Callahan · July 29, 2026
Cable gauge answers two separate questions and most people only ask one. How ampacity and voltage drop differ, why the fuse protects the wire rather than the device, and how close to the battery it has to sit.
Drew Callahan · July 29, 2026
Wiring a lithium house bank straight to the alternator either undercharges it or cooks the alternator. What a DC-DC charger actually does differently, and how to size one.
Drew Callahan · July 29, 2026
The two numbers in a Victron model name are a voltage ceiling and a current ceiling, and they constrain different things. How to size an array without discovering the cold-weather voltage trap the hard way.
Drew Callahan · June 16, 2026
Last summer, I started waking up to a dead battery almost every third day at camp. No shore power hookup, no generator running overnight — just me, my 24-foot travel trailer, and a battery bank that was clearly losing the…
Drew Callahan · April 29, 2026
I was three weeks into a late-September push through New Mexico when the Thor’s batteries gave up the ghost around 4 p.m.—not dramatically, but that slow, creeping fade where your fridge compressor runs, your lights dim, and you realize you’re about eight hours away from a dead house bank. I’d been through the same cycle … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 29, 2026
Call a Winnebago dealer about powering a Solis off-grid for a week, and they’ll tell you the stock 60Ah AGM battery setup is plenty—you just need to manage your usage. Ask that same question in any RV forum, and you’ll get a dozen voices saying flat-out that those batteries are undersized and you’ll be in … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 29, 2026
Staring at a battery monitor that won’t stop flashing warnings? Wondering if you can actually trust what it’s telling you anymore, or if you’re one dead night away from being stuck in the dark with a fridge that won’t run? That’s the call I get, and it usually means the same thing: the original battery … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 28, 2026
Airstream doesn’t include a footnote in the owner’s manual about what happens when you inherit a used Interstate 19X with a shot lead-acid battery bank and a solar setup that’s been slowly starving itself for two years. You won’t find it in the dealer literature either. What you get instead is a rig that holds … Read more
Drew Callahan · April 28, 2026
It was a Tuesday morning somewhere outside Moab, and I was standing next to the Revel’s battery box when I heard it—that high-pitched whine from the converter, the kind of sound that makes your stomach drop because you know it means something’s pulling too hard and working way too hot. I cracked open the compartment … Read more
