AGM batteries - are they better?

full_mosey wrote:

DryCamper11 wrote:

"Wets are cheaper to buy, AGMs are cheaper to own.".

After working through this, I find this very, very hard to believe. The AGMs have several advantages, but cost is not one of them. To be cheaper to own, you'd have to have longer life - close to 2 or 3 times the 6-8 years of a deep cycle FLA, which I don't see, or have to add in a very high labor cost for maintaining and checking water levels in the FLA. There's also some gain in running the generator less if you can get faster charge rates, but even there, I don't see that advantage as being enough to overcome the much higher initial cost of AGMs. It looks to me like an AGM has several advantages that may or not be worth the cost to a potential buyer, but I don't see how the AGM is going to be cheaper in the long run.

What would be a fair labor rate to compare costs?


HTH;
John

:h

What labor?

Takes me a max of 2 minutes per cell to check and add water to my two 6V GC batteries per year, that makes it 12 whole minutes of "labor" per year. Over 8 years that would be a whopping 96 minutes or 1hr 36minutes of "labor" even at $120 per hr of "labor" it STILL is cheaper to buy FLA instead of the more expensive AGMs.

Labor for keeping FLA terminals "clean", if done right the FIRST time there is not real "labor" involved. You see, I found the secret to FLA terminals is to use anti corrosion protectant. I simply put a light amount of No-Alox (made specifically for electrical connections) on the battery terminals and the cable ends. So far after 6 years the connections are corrosion free. I put that labor at ZERO.

To me, the expense of AGMs outweigh any possible "advantages" that they might offer.

Unless you have a specific "need" for high vibration resistance, able to keep "indoors" (although I personally question the safety of LARGE AGM battery banks indoors), no watering and the possibility of a SLIGHT faster recharge then FLAs are a better choice.