Batteries died...sheesh
Good morning, In less than 5 years the batteries the dealer sold us for our AF990 died. I had been very careful with them as I learned the hard way at our cabin years ago. Keept the camper plu...
Forum Discussion
I went through this at my cabin which is 100% off grid and I built the system myself.
Yes Trojan L16's were almost 3x better than GCB's but the GCB's were so much cheaper I could replace them 3 times, get more life out of those 3 replacements and still save money.
Looking at LithiumIon batteries I considered the need to keep them warm (they don't take a change under 50F if memory serves me correctly) and I am often in sub freezing temps when camping. How much drain on the batteries keeing them above 50F in 10F weather? Cost appears good at $259x2 for two LI batts...for a total of $518 to get me what? Maybe 15 years (not convinced on that as a hard fast number).
So let's do the math: $89x2 for the two batts I bought at Costco - $178.00 and they should last me 5 years like the last ones did. So $178x3 = $534. No worries about cold, no need to update4 charge controllers for my solar panel etc etc.
Or $518 and I need to make some changes, need to keep them warm, probably have to spend even more money and may not get a full 15years out of them.
Yes I could get more AH's out of the LI's but I don't need it the way we use our camper. These two batteries did all we needed. Yes, I could add an inverter etc but honestly, if I was going to do all that I'd just go to the cabin where I have plenty of all of the above (4000 watt pure sine inverter that peaks at 12k watts, 55amp charger, EcoGen, 9 solar panels kicking out all the power I need, etc etc etc.
I'd say it's 6 of one, half dozen of another :D
Yes Trojan L16's were almost 3x better than GCB's but the GCB's were so much cheaper I could replace them 3 times, get more life out of those 3 replacements and still save money.
Looking at LithiumIon batteries I considered the need to keep them warm (they don't take a change under 50F if memory serves me correctly) and I am often in sub freezing temps when camping. How much drain on the batteries keeing them above 50F in 10F weather? Cost appears good at $259x2 for two LI batts...for a total of $518 to get me what? Maybe 15 years (not convinced on that as a hard fast number).
So let's do the math: $89x2 for the two batts I bought at Costco - $178.00 and they should last me 5 years like the last ones did. So $178x3 = $534. No worries about cold, no need to update4 charge controllers for my solar panel etc etc.
Or $518 and I need to make some changes, need to keep them warm, probably have to spend even more money and may not get a full 15years out of them.
Yes I could get more AH's out of the LI's but I don't need it the way we use our camper. These two batteries did all we needed. Yes, I could add an inverter etc but honestly, if I was going to do all that I'd just go to the cabin where I have plenty of all of the above (4000 watt pure sine inverter that peaks at 12k watts, 55amp charger, EcoGen, 9 solar panels kicking out all the power I need, etc etc etc.
I'd say it's 6 of one, half dozen of another :D
