profdant139 wrote:
I guess I have to accept the fact that FLA batteries are "wear" items -- they don't last forever. I give them as much TLC as I can -- never over-discharging them, always recharging them fully as soon as possible, keeping them on a trickle charger, checking water and SG, etc.
Actually ALL "batteries" are "wear items", in fact each time you "use" them (IE discharge/recharge cycle) you ARE "wearing them out". ALL batteries are a "consumable", you consume a part of them, physically and chemically.
Does not matter what the chemical composition of a battery is, over time they WILL ALL FAIL. It is more the matter of when they will fail.
For those banking on Lith type batteries to giving longer life, yeah, you WILL be disappointed down the road that you sunk that money into a MORE EXPENSIVE consumable item and get very little extra life out of them.
I have dealt with AGMs and Lith batteries in 24/7/365 industrial useage devices, for the money the company wasted on those batteries I could have retired 10 yrs ago and been a multi-millionaire. Company spent a lot of money sending out replacement batteries on warranties..
AGMs ARE nothing more than glorified GELCELLS, they are finicky about charging voltages and Lith can suddenly without warning STOP charging or DISCHARGING due to BMS (and for the ones with integrated BMS there is zero hope of ever bringing those back to life). Yeah, have dealt with a lot of DOA lith batteries with sudden death, customers were not real happy..
I can buy a heck of a lot of FLA batteries for the cost of other battery tech and that is a fact, so even if you had to replace FLA in 5 yrs instead of 6yrs for other tech you are more cost effective buying FLA..
This last set of batteries lasted five years -- I would estimate 400 nights of camping during that time (80 or more nights per year). Decent life, but I have heard of others who got much better results than I did.
My last set of Gc2s got me 9 yrs, could have used them another yr or two but I use them to power my home fridge conversion and they were showing signs of lower capacity.. When I use them I am discharging them at least 50% of the capacity, sometimes a lot more if I need the furnace overnight. They do get to loaf most of the yr as we only get a couple of weeks to camp but when we do camp, they are worked hard.
It could be that my usage was a little tougher than average, because we usually experience about 20 nights of subfreezing temps during each camping season. We also tow the trailer on rough forest roads almost every trip -- it could be that the bouncing is hard on the components of the batteries.
I doubt towing on rough roads are having much effect on the battery.. Most of the wear is on how you handle the discharge/recharge cycle and how deep of discharge they get.. The less discharge, the longer life they will have overall.. You might be discharging deeper than you should but at 400 cycles that is not all that bad when you think of it..
Found a article that pretty much is saying the same thing as I am mentioning and perhaps be helpful to understand batteries..
HERE
Might be worth mentioning, charging too hard or not hard enough can and does affect the battery life, in essence there is a sweet spot between battery capacity and charge capacity..
