Costco GC2 Batts
Well, One of my 4 year 4 month old GC2s from Costco just coughed up a cell during a cold Coast camp trip!! Sure I could buy another $86 Batt,, but I would still have a 4+ year old one.. Ordered two ...
Forum Discussion
I was trying to find a different thread, to find out exactly when I installed some Costco interstate GC-2s in my neighbor's RV, replacing some group 29 wally world marine batteries.
I remember when they were new, the SG was still a bit low and took a while before they responded to a higher voltage massage even requiring a shallow cycle before they did respond.
There was some debate whether these were relabelled trojan T- 605s as the weight was the same and there were such rumors floating around. I honestly do not know who made them for interstate.
I will guess they have been in there 14 to 15 months.
Their only charging sources are a distant ford Alternator, and An Iota DLS-45 with the iq4.
These batteries likely have seen 30 deep cycles to the sub 11 volt range, and perhaps 50 cycles to the sub 12.2 range and perhaps an equal amount of cycles to the sub 12.45v range.
After the owner gets home I told him to plug it in for 3 days, then turn off the master of switch I installed at batteries, but no doubt that switch has been left on numerous times and the parasitic draws did their thing over unknown amounts of time to unknown levels of depletion, before the Iota got some 120vac juice to do its thing.
Anyway They are going on a multistate excursion and I told them I will check the batteries before they go.
It has been plugged in for a day.
SG was 1.265 +/- .005 on each of the 6 cells. No watering at all required.
I attached my Meanwell rsp-500-15 to it, dialed it upto 14.8v and amps quickly tapered to 2.3.
I let it go for a half hour then came back and twisted the voltage dial until they batteries were accepting 10.5 amps. This happened to be at 15.73v.
I walked away and some 15 minutes later saw amps had Tapered to 4.78 and dialed it up to 16v.
Batteries were accepting 6.1 amps at 16v so I dialed it upto 16.2v and they were taking 9 amps.
Came back some 20 minutes later they were still acepting 9 amps and bubbling vigorously, dipped the hydrometer on all 6 cells, All were at 1.275 +/- 0.003. Electrolyte still clear.
Disconnected Meanwell moved it to another neighbor's battery sealed maintenance free flooded 1.5 years old, that was down at 5.78v, taken down there over ~ a week by domelights.
Those costco interstate GC-2's are sure a different experience than the screwy31 whose SG was always low and varied widely, and the Iota seems to be doing a good job.
Hard to really say just how much abuse the batteries have endured, but it is safe to say the owner will use them until inverter starts screaming, and even the LEDs look dim before he will fire up the Generator.
The 50% rule is not even the slightest consideration to the owners.
I remember when they were new, the SG was still a bit low and took a while before they responded to a higher voltage massage even requiring a shallow cycle before they did respond.
There was some debate whether these were relabelled trojan T- 605s as the weight was the same and there were such rumors floating around. I honestly do not know who made them for interstate.
I will guess they have been in there 14 to 15 months.
Their only charging sources are a distant ford Alternator, and An Iota DLS-45 with the iq4.
These batteries likely have seen 30 deep cycles to the sub 11 volt range, and perhaps 50 cycles to the sub 12.2 range and perhaps an equal amount of cycles to the sub 12.45v range.
After the owner gets home I told him to plug it in for 3 days, then turn off the master of switch I installed at batteries, but no doubt that switch has been left on numerous times and the parasitic draws did their thing over unknown amounts of time to unknown levels of depletion, before the Iota got some 120vac juice to do its thing.
Anyway They are going on a multistate excursion and I told them I will check the batteries before they go.
It has been plugged in for a day.
SG was 1.265 +/- .005 on each of the 6 cells. No watering at all required.
I attached my Meanwell rsp-500-15 to it, dialed it upto 14.8v and amps quickly tapered to 2.3.
I let it go for a half hour then came back and twisted the voltage dial until they batteries were accepting 10.5 amps. This happened to be at 15.73v.
I walked away and some 15 minutes later saw amps had Tapered to 4.78 and dialed it up to 16v.
Batteries were accepting 6.1 amps at 16v so I dialed it upto 16.2v and they were taking 9 amps.
Came back some 20 minutes later they were still acepting 9 amps and bubbling vigorously, dipped the hydrometer on all 6 cells, All were at 1.275 +/- 0.003. Electrolyte still clear.
Disconnected Meanwell moved it to another neighbor's battery sealed maintenance free flooded 1.5 years old, that was down at 5.78v, taken down there over ~ a week by domelights.
Those costco interstate GC-2's are sure a different experience than the screwy31 whose SG was always low and varied widely, and the Iota seems to be doing a good job.
Hard to really say just how much abuse the batteries have endured, but it is safe to say the owner will use them until inverter starts screaming, and even the LEDs look dim before he will fire up the Generator.
The 50% rule is not even the slightest consideration to the owners.
