SiO2, Lead Crystal, Soneil Batteries

[PerryB67]

For various reasons I have purchased a pair of Soneil, SiO2, 260ah, batteries from Azmuth Solar.

Are there any other users here of any version/brand of SiO2 (lead crystal) batteries?

Either respond here or send me a PM.

I've found this can be a hot topic, but I'm not interested in arguing.

Thanks,

Perry

[pianotuna]

2oldman wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
You can't recharge Li when they are cold.

Is that what he's referring to?

Here is what Perry said 2oldman

PerryB67 wrote:

I'm not sold on lithium, live in Minnesota, don't want to remove our batteries in cold weather, and have a seasonal campsite with no trees to shade us in the afternoon, where it reaches near/over 100F in the little valley at least 30 days a year. These are just some of the problems/reasons to purchase our 260 ah Soneil SiO2 batteries. I no longer have to nag at Terry for her to conserve energy.

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

Enjoy,

Perry

[2oldman]

pianotuna wrote:
You can't recharge Li when they are cold.

Is that what he's referring to?

[pianotuna]

StirCrazy wrote:

why would you have to remove them? just have a shut off switch and turn them off when you leave.

Steve

Steve,

You can't recharge Li when they are cold. If it is -30, it may take HOURS of furnace run time to warm up the RV and the battery bank, even if it is in the living quarters. So it may be impossible to get the battery bank to where it is possible to recharge it, unless it is a massive bank to start with. If you roll your own--fine--but if you are buying drop in it may cost a pretty penny. The alternative is to remove the batteries to a warm environment and then return them to the RV.

I realize this is an outlier possibility--but it is the situation in which I live and RV in.

[StirCrazy]

PerryB67 wrote:

I'm not sold on lithium, live in Minnesota, don't want to remove our batteries in cold weather, and have a seasonal campsite with no trees to shade us in the afternoon, where it reaches near/over 100F in the little valley at least 30 days a year. These are just some of the problems/reasons to purchase our 260 ah Soneil SiO2 batteries. I no longer have to nag at Terry for her to conserve energy.

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

Enjoy,

Perry

why would you have to remove them? just have a shut off switch and turn them off when you leave.

Steve

[PerryB67]

2oldman wrote:

PerryB67 wrote:
The most amps to come out of the pair was around 84 amps. They are 220 ah 6 volt batteries and should have 110 available ah's, so 84 ah's is well within reason.

...was set correctly for AGM batteries and again, they were never below 84 ah.

I didn't know amps were directly comparable to amp-hours. Can you elaborate?

Corrected from my phone.

Enjoy,

Perry

[Matt_Colie]

At the end of this sailing season, I will report how well the FireFly Carbon Foam batteries I just installed in a client's performance cruiser. Because most of the deckspace is working area, the solar portion is very limited. I am going to have to find a bigger alternator that is no larger because what the main engine is came equipped with is only 50Amp and that may take a long time to recover the pair of ~110Ah Gp 31s. Trick is finding one with a tachometer output.

Firefly says that these can be discharged to less the 50%SOC with no reduction in capacity. If I can qualify this, I will let you know.

Matt

[2oldman]

PerryB67 wrote:
The most amps to come out of the pair was around 84 amps. They are 220 ah 6 volt batteries and should have 110 available ah's, so 84 ah's is well within reason.

...was set correctly for AGM batteries and again, they were never below 84 ah.

I didn't know amps were directly comparable to amp-hours. Can you elaborate?

[PerryB67]

pianotuna wrote:
PerryB67,

I look forward to hearing about your system.

Lwiddis wrote:
PLEASE post a review in 6 months, OP.

I plan on posting my results to this thread as I see them happen.

Enjoy,

Perry

[PerryB67]

3 tons wrote:

PerryB67 wrote:
BFL13 and any other SiO2 owners:

We also have a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor, that we purchased when our first set of Crown 6v AGM batteries failed. Two years later (January 2021) our second set failed, so we purchased the Soneil batteries from Azmuth.

I would be curious as to what caused two sets of Crown’s to fail, and if you were able to correct the situation??

3 tons

The first set failed after 3 months and both 6v's were sent back to Crown by the replacement dealer. I was later asked if I had dropped the battery that failed. I hadn't, but perhaps the shipping company did. They were shipped to our door.

I installed the Victron BMV-712 monitor after the first failure for better monitoring. The most amp hours to come out of the pair was around 84 ah's. They were 220 ah 6 volt batteries and should have 110 available ah's, so 84 ah's is well within reason. I also now have replaced the GoPower controller for a Victron 100/20 and can see the last 30 days of history. Nothing shows up as being suspect! You can fool me once, even twice, but not three times!

The replacement batteries lasted 2 years before failure. The GoPower was set correctly for AGM batteries and again, they were never below 84 ah. When I removed the second set I noticed they were bowed out at the sides, but that is typical for AGM's.

I feel 100 ah's is not enough for us and we don't have an inverter (yet). We can stay for two weeks without services and in Minnesota that can be under trees. We have a 100 watt Renogy portable for that situation. BUT we want to charge our phones, computers, run lights at random, etc. and couldn't do that with only 110 ah's.

I'm not sold on lithium, live in Minnesota, don't want to remove our batteries in cold weather, and have a seasonal campsite with no trees to shade us in the afternoon, where it reaches near/over 100F in the little valley at least 30 days a year. These are just some of the problems/reasons to purchase our 260 ah Soneil SiO2 batteries. I no longer have to nag at Terry for her to conserve energy.

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

Enjoy,

Perry

[3_tons]

PerryB67 wrote:
BFL13 and any other SiO2 owners:

We also have a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor, that we purchased when our first set of Crown 6v AGM batteries failed. Two years later (January 2021) our second set failed, so we purchased the Soneil batteries from Azmuth.

I would be curious as to what caused two sets of Crown’s to fail, and if you were able to correct the situation??

3 tons

[Lwiddis]

PLEASE post a review in 6 months, OP.

[pianotuna]

PerryB67,

I look forward to hearing about your system.

[2oldman]

..

[BFL13]

If there is some private question, I can PM you, but usually, it is possible to discuss batteries here no worries.

EDIT--ok now see above post. So what is the question? I tried AGMs for my scenario and they couldn't handle the high draws apparently, so I am trying these batts.

Won't know if that was a good move until we get to use them a bunch over the next year or two --assuming things get going again 😞

[PerryB67]

BFL13 and any other SiO2 owners:

In January we purchased a pair of Soneil 260ah, 6v batteries from Azmuth Solar.

We currently have a single 170 watt solar panel on the roof of our camper going to a Victron 100/30 smart controller. We also have a 100 watt portable going to a Victron 100/20 controller. Both controllers are hooked up separately to our battery bank. All works well!

We also have a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor, that we purchased when our first set of Crown 6v AGM batteries failed. Two years later (January 2021) our second set failed, so we purchased the Soneil batteries from Azmuth.

For jollies, I'm trying to make a list of SiO2 owners, their setups, and any experiences they may contribute. I have no intentions of publicly listing anyone's name, unless it's OK'd by them.

I'm hoping you'll add to the list.

Thanks,

Perry