Battery capacity

Ceramic electric heater needs 110 power  

Golf cart batteries are good because you get more amp hours of use between charges, but it is unrelated to your use of a ceramic heater that runs on alternating current.  Remember, your Pod is equipped with two distinct electric systems.  One runs on 12 volt direct current [DC] and is entirely separate from your other system, which is a 120 volt alternating current [AC] system.  When you are unplugged from the house, or wherever you get AC current, you are operating on only the 12v DC system.  All of your lights and the heater are connected to the DC system.  Your household type plugs and the air conditioner all are connected to the AC system.  Appliances like the microwave, your TV, etc. are connected to AC only.  Your refrigerator will run on AC or propane.  It may be wired to also run on DC but it is not advisable to use that feature because it will drain your battery really fast.  

Originally posted by GlueGuy Originally posted by dennis Also, is two 6 volt batteries better than a 12? I'm also thinking of adding what I need to go solar. The R-pod is wired for it, but I don't know how to get started? 6-volt batteries are not really "better", but the so-called "CG" (for Golf Cart) batteries are often more economical than similar capacity 12-volt batteries. Remember the amp-hour (or AH) rating on batteries is misleading WRT capacity. To get apples-to-apples comparison of different voltage batteries, you need to compensate for the voltage difference. The simple way to do this is to convert to watt-hours. As an example a 100 AH 12V battery is the same capacity as a 200 AH 6-volt battery; both are ~~ 1200 watt-hours.

dennis, you can find lots of discussion about 6 vs. 12 volt batteries on the board.  Basically, connecting two 6 volt batteries in series, gives you 12 volts.  The advantage is that then you gain a lot more amp hours, or time of use.  The down side is that 6 volt golf cart batteries are heavy and weight can be an issue if you're loading lots of stuff in your Pod.

The reason why "two GC2's is the best answer" is used on this board is, that that is the most aH's you can get and mount, on the factory supplied battery tray, without modification.

The sky is the limit if you want to modify the mounting point/tray.

Converting 12v to 120v, at the rate and amps you would need to run a ceramic heater is a whole area not suited to podding.

Up your 12v storage, figure out a recharge plan, solar or genny, and use the cabin heater the Pod was built with. It uses way more 12v then it does propane.

On the panel lights question.. 4 lights is what it will show when charging/hooked up to shore power. 3 lights is a "full battery" ie: at least 12.6v in the system.