Need new batteries. Any advice?
New here, howdy ya'll.. got a new to me travel trailer, 26ft, and am need of new batteries. there are 2 in the front, looked to be wired together. It currently has 2 old interstate deep cycle batt...
Forum Discussion
Steve,
When camping, I often discharge my cheapo Sams club GC2s well below 50% on a daily basis. I do however make sure they get recharged as soon as possible and doing so easily got 9 yrs of use before I noticed the batteries had lost some capacity and started to use more water. I suspect I could have rode that for another 1-2 yrs but opted to change out the batteries so I didn't end up with accidental food loss.
Usage plays a key role in purchasing decision, we camp only 3-4 weeks per yr with the same discharge pattern.. GC2 batteries ARE rated at a usage of 80% of the capacity unlike a combo RV/marine which would never survive that use.
Now, with Lithium batteries the BMS allows only 80% of the capacity to be used, internally the batteries are capable of another 20%.. The BMS limits your use.
Lithium battery manufacturers typically rate their batteries with 3,000 or more charge/discharge cycles.. I am here to say, that is not 100% true in all cases and those are "pie in the sky" overly optimistic cycles".. Lithium batteries in the whole existence of batteries are a very new technology and absolutely no one really knows just how many real life cycles they will be able to take and you add in the BMS failures which are not accounted for in the cycles rating..
Reminds me of the LED light bulb manufacturers claims of 100,000 hrs of useable life.. Yeah that IS a lie, the LEDs might last that long if they do not overdrive them, but the driver electronics often fails far short of 10K hrs..
I spent many yrs working in a high tech manufacturing job and one of the devices we designed and built was powered via rechargeable Lithium batteries.. It was used in a 24/7/365 setting.. My job was to load the software to those devices when new, and SERVICE the devices when they FAILED.
The FAILURE rates of the Lithium batteries for that device was very high after one yr of use (365 cycles) and was a common complaint of our customers. Nearly every device that came back for a repair ended up going back out with a new battery.. We sold the device with 2 additional batteries which were charged in a external charger and the batteries would get swapped after each shift change.. Basically after 365 "cycles" the Lithium batteries would start failing which puts them BELOW par with FLA..
Lithium batteries also hold a lot of energy potential in a small package, when they go south the damage is far worse than FLA..
Case in point.. Fitbit just announced yesterday a RECALL on their Fitbit ION device.. For guess what?
Yeah, LITHIUM BATTERY MALFUNCTION which has caused severe burns to end users..
"
Recall Date:
March 02, 2022
Hazard:
The lithium-ion battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard.
Incidents/Injuries:
Fitbit has received at least 115 reports in the United States (and 59 reports internationally) of the battery in the watch overheating with 78 reports of burn injuries in the United States including two reports of third-degree burns and four reports of second-degree burns (and 40 reports of burn injuries internationally).
"
Catastrophic Lithium battery failures are not new nor unusual, most of those failures never ever make it outside the walls of that company (I know the failures that hurt users of my companies devices didn't). Companies typically find ways to keep things quiet.
Wasn't all that long ago that a huge recall was issued by all laptop manufacturers for faulty Lithium batteries which could short out due to contamination that happened during manufacturing of the cells..
And before you say anything about the size and differences of lithium types, you do need to understand that ALL of the "12V" lithium batteries you are talking about are composed of multiple SMALL lithium cells which are in series and parallel setup inside that case. Each cell has a nominal 3.8V voltage potential so it takes a minimum of 3 cells in series to get you to "12V", each cell is capable of about 2Ahr so it take many series strings to arrive at 100Ahr of capacity..
All it takes is just ONE of those cells to short internally and the whole thing goes out of control.
Many here on this forum do not really understand the firecracker you are playing with.
You also ignore another issue, recycleabilty of the batteries..
FLA is readily and actively being recycled, all of the new FLAs being do have either a percentage or could be up to 100% reclaimed Lead! Very cost effective and less junk going into hazardous waste or landfills.
Lithium batteries, well, no recycled or reclaimed content in them, it is ALL 100% NEW materials.. While there has been some small scale attempts to breakdown and reclaim the base materials in Lithium batteries it is too cost prohibited to scale it up to the same levels as FLA reclaimers can do. When your large scale lithium batteries die, they will accumulate in backlots, warehouses, landfills.
When camping, I often discharge my cheapo Sams club GC2s well below 50% on a daily basis. I do however make sure they get recharged as soon as possible and doing so easily got 9 yrs of use before I noticed the batteries had lost some capacity and started to use more water. I suspect I could have rode that for another 1-2 yrs but opted to change out the batteries so I didn't end up with accidental food loss.
Usage plays a key role in purchasing decision, we camp only 3-4 weeks per yr with the same discharge pattern.. GC2 batteries ARE rated at a usage of 80% of the capacity unlike a combo RV/marine which would never survive that use.
Now, with Lithium batteries the BMS allows only 80% of the capacity to be used, internally the batteries are capable of another 20%.. The BMS limits your use.
Lithium battery manufacturers typically rate their batteries with 3,000 or more charge/discharge cycles.. I am here to say, that is not 100% true in all cases and those are "pie in the sky" overly optimistic cycles".. Lithium batteries in the whole existence of batteries are a very new technology and absolutely no one really knows just how many real life cycles they will be able to take and you add in the BMS failures which are not accounted for in the cycles rating..
Reminds me of the LED light bulb manufacturers claims of 100,000 hrs of useable life.. Yeah that IS a lie, the LEDs might last that long if they do not overdrive them, but the driver electronics often fails far short of 10K hrs..
I spent many yrs working in a high tech manufacturing job and one of the devices we designed and built was powered via rechargeable Lithium batteries.. It was used in a 24/7/365 setting.. My job was to load the software to those devices when new, and SERVICE the devices when they FAILED.
The FAILURE rates of the Lithium batteries for that device was very high after one yr of use (365 cycles) and was a common complaint of our customers. Nearly every device that came back for a repair ended up going back out with a new battery.. We sold the device with 2 additional batteries which were charged in a external charger and the batteries would get swapped after each shift change.. Basically after 365 "cycles" the Lithium batteries would start failing which puts them BELOW par with FLA..
Lithium batteries also hold a lot of energy potential in a small package, when they go south the damage is far worse than FLA..
Case in point.. Fitbit just announced yesterday a RECALL on their Fitbit ION device.. For guess what?
Yeah, LITHIUM BATTERY MALFUNCTION which has caused severe burns to end users..
"
Recall Date:
March 02, 2022
Hazard:
The lithium-ion battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard.
Incidents/Injuries:
Fitbit has received at least 115 reports in the United States (and 59 reports internationally) of the battery in the watch overheating with 78 reports of burn injuries in the United States including two reports of third-degree burns and four reports of second-degree burns (and 40 reports of burn injuries internationally).
"
Catastrophic Lithium battery failures are not new nor unusual, most of those failures never ever make it outside the walls of that company (I know the failures that hurt users of my companies devices didn't). Companies typically find ways to keep things quiet.
Wasn't all that long ago that a huge recall was issued by all laptop manufacturers for faulty Lithium batteries which could short out due to contamination that happened during manufacturing of the cells..
And before you say anything about the size and differences of lithium types, you do need to understand that ALL of the "12V" lithium batteries you are talking about are composed of multiple SMALL lithium cells which are in series and parallel setup inside that case. Each cell has a nominal 3.8V voltage potential so it takes a minimum of 3 cells in series to get you to "12V", each cell is capable of about 2Ahr so it take many series strings to arrive at 100Ahr of capacity..
All it takes is just ONE of those cells to short internally and the whole thing goes out of control.
Many here on this forum do not really understand the firecracker you are playing with.
You also ignore another issue, recycleabilty of the batteries..
FLA is readily and actively being recycled, all of the new FLAs being do have either a percentage or could be up to 100% reclaimed Lead! Very cost effective and less junk going into hazardous waste or landfills.
Lithium batteries, well, no recycled or reclaimed content in them, it is ALL 100% NEW materials.. While there has been some small scale attempts to breakdown and reclaim the base materials in Lithium batteries it is too cost prohibited to scale it up to the same levels as FLA reclaimers can do. When your large scale lithium batteries die, they will accumulate in backlots, warehouses, landfills.
