Replaced my house batteries...
My house batteries, two four+ year old group 27 Interstate {Wet} Deep Cycles, have been on their last legs for at least 6 months. I kept stretching their life carefully topping them up before every o...
Forum Discussion
A few thoughts on the previous posts...and thanks one and all for your input. My old batteries were "True" deep cycles but after 4+ years they were just tired, nothing wrong or unusual there. Stories of batteries lasting a millienium or longer are fequently found on internet forums, file them next to the I got 150,00 miles out of a set of brakes... :R
I sold batteries for years in the Marine industry, we were a Trojan dealer. AGM's charge just fine with a standard {wet cel} charger or converter as the ideal charging voltages {unlike Gel's} are very similar.
I never said I had to add water often... I checked them often and typically added a small amount as needed but checking or adding water was a PITA every time.{ I quickly learned in boating that the two greats lies in the English language are "waterproof and maintenance free".} I will continue to monitor/check my new AGM's but it will not involve disassembling the entire wiring harness to gain access {hooray}.
We use very little DC {most folks use less than they think}. We spend about 13 hours a day outside and at night, after a nice campfire we retreat to the coach for maybe an hour of reading, journaling {whatever} which involves running two incandescent lights that draw about an amp a piece.
The only significant draw is the furnace during the winter as the squirrel cage fan is the largest DC draw in the coach but with a 35K BTU furnace {in a 24' Class C} it just does not run much at all - about 5 minutes two or three times a night. We never watch TV, music comes from our i-Phones and Blue Tooth Speaker
Even with the old batteries at the normal end of their working life we could sit for 3 days without any need to run the genny {we have 84 hours on our genny and the coach is 7+ years old and 70 percent of our trips are off of the grid}. About 30 minutes of generator time brought them back up nicely and we usually move after 3 or 4 days at most. A few hours of driving and we are back to fully charged and the cycle starts anew.
Yep the AGM's cost twice what the old wet's did and I was happy to spend the money.
:C
I sold batteries for years in the Marine industry, we were a Trojan dealer. AGM's charge just fine with a standard {wet cel} charger or converter as the ideal charging voltages {unlike Gel's} are very similar.
I never said I had to add water often... I checked them often and typically added a small amount as needed but checking or adding water was a PITA every time.{ I quickly learned in boating that the two greats lies in the English language are "waterproof and maintenance free".} I will continue to monitor/check my new AGM's but it will not involve disassembling the entire wiring harness to gain access {hooray}.
We use very little DC {most folks use less than they think}. We spend about 13 hours a day outside and at night, after a nice campfire we retreat to the coach for maybe an hour of reading, journaling {whatever} which involves running two incandescent lights that draw about an amp a piece.
The only significant draw is the furnace during the winter as the squirrel cage fan is the largest DC draw in the coach but with a 35K BTU furnace {in a 24' Class C} it just does not run much at all - about 5 minutes two or three times a night. We never watch TV, music comes from our i-Phones and Blue Tooth Speaker
Even with the old batteries at the normal end of their working life we could sit for 3 days without any need to run the genny {we have 84 hours on our genny and the coach is 7+ years old and 70 percent of our trips are off of the grid}. About 30 minutes of generator time brought them back up nicely and we usually move after 3 or 4 days at most. A few hours of driving and we are back to fully charged and the cycle starts anew.
Yep the AGM's cost twice what the old wet's did and I was happy to spend the money.
:C
