Am I a dinosaur?

Reading motorhome forums, it seems that everyone is changing to Lithium leisure batteries. AND they have installed a roof full of solar panels a few years ago. 20A or more  chargers seem to be an absolute necessity.

We are still operating with a flooded lead acid battery, but we have fitted a small 40W solar panel under the skylight. We connect up our 5A battery charger if we think we may be having a hook up.

Lithium batteries come with a long guarantee, typically 10 years so they must last much longer than a standard lead acid battery.  I find that lead acids last 3-4 years before there capacity drops to lower than our requirements,  although they would probably last a further 2-3 years if we used EHU on a regular basis. So I am shelling out around £100 every 3-4 years. A lithium battery would cost me around £5-600 maybe every 10 - 12 years, although no one has had one for that length of time yet. 

Lithium batteries have a much higher capacity  than lead acids. A Lithium battery typically is 2-300 Ah and can be discharged by 85%. Lead acids are around 100Ah and should not be discharged more than 50%. We use around 7Ah per day but the 40W solar panel provides 50-100% of that. We don't need more capacity, or more solar power.

Our 5Ah battery charger would easily top up the battery overnight even if we had run it down to 50% somehow.

Problems with newer "more advanced" vans seem to arise from:-

• the dissimilar batteries used for the vehicle battery and the leisure battery and the ensuing charging problems. This is usually addressed by fitting a step up dc-dc converter at around £150
  
• the complex power management systems used
• the complex solar power controllers used
  
• the power taken from the battery to run the gas heating
• the power taken from the battery to run the fridge
• the reliance on inverters to run mains powered items.

Our van is spared the issues of heating and the fridge by Autosleepers choice of items. I see no reason to change them.

The original power management system is another matter. It was horrible. False modesty aside, my simple system is much better, and I suspect better than the commercial offerings.

Our little solar panel charges the similar (currently identical) vehicle and leisure battery with no controller at all in the winter,  and a very basic controller in the summer. 

We don't tend to use mains powered items. Our phones, tablets  and computer use 12v usb car adaptors

As an engineer I find the discussions quite interesting and educational. But I am not tempted to change.

So maybe I am a dinosaur, but a happy one.