AGM battery advice
Well, it looks like the two Interstates are cooked. I'm considering upgrading to AGMs. Looking at some of the pricing, like the EXIDE brand is scary, but OPTIMA lists a nice 750CCA batter for onl...
Forum Discussion
Guys, I did some research and spoke to the reps at Interstate Battery- learned a few things.
One: I'm switching from 2 12vdc batteries wired in parallel, to 2 6vdc golf cart batteries wired in series.
The Ampere/hour/discharge rate had me confused but now I've got it.
Since I'm not using the batteries to start an engine (other than the small Onan 2.5kw generator) the "cold cranking amp" rating is fairly unimportant. What MATTERS is the amount of current it can discharge over time. I never understood the "20 hour" rating thing they were doing but now I do:
If the battery is rated for 100 amp/hours that means you divide the 100 by the 20 our rating, and you get 5 amps per hour performance before you're reaching the point that you don't want to pass (Interstate says it's 10.8vdc)
Okay, so with the the two 12 vdc Interstate batteries that I had (the SRM27's that came with the Arctic Fox) I had 88 ampere/hours. That works out to about 4.4 amps/hour.
With the 2 6vdc batteries in series, it's offering 230 ampere/hours--- HUGE increase! That's 11.5 amps per hour before reaching the recharging point.
I have two choices the normal wet cell flooded types are only 140 each- pretty reasonable. The same battery in the AGM version is 300 each, but can last 12 years with virtually no service. I'm leaning towards the AGM version.
I just wanted to pass on the info I learned, hopefully it'll clear up some stuff for ya'll like it did for me.
anthony
One: I'm switching from 2 12vdc batteries wired in parallel, to 2 6vdc golf cart batteries wired in series.
The Ampere/hour/discharge rate had me confused but now I've got it.
Since I'm not using the batteries to start an engine (other than the small Onan 2.5kw generator) the "cold cranking amp" rating is fairly unimportant. What MATTERS is the amount of current it can discharge over time. I never understood the "20 hour" rating thing they were doing but now I do:
If the battery is rated for 100 amp/hours that means you divide the 100 by the 20 our rating, and you get 5 amps per hour performance before you're reaching the point that you don't want to pass (Interstate says it's 10.8vdc)
Okay, so with the the two 12 vdc Interstate batteries that I had (the SRM27's that came with the Arctic Fox) I had 88 ampere/hours. That works out to about 4.4 amps/hour.
With the 2 6vdc batteries in series, it's offering 230 ampere/hours--- HUGE increase! That's 11.5 amps per hour before reaching the recharging point.
I have two choices the normal wet cell flooded types are only 140 each- pretty reasonable. The same battery in the AGM version is 300 each, but can last 12 years with virtually no service. I'm leaning towards the AGM version.
I just wanted to pass on the info I learned, hopefully it'll clear up some stuff for ya'll like it did for me.
anthony
