Why can't I get a TRUE Deep cycle battery anymore?

[pjw73nh]

As the title says. Why can't I get a true deep cycle battery any more? I suppose I could get a $250+ high end one (Optima/Trojan etc), but I am looking in the sub $150 range. I use my trailer 6 times a year and pay close attention to battery maintenance. I consider them disposable after 3-4 years.

I used to be able to get them at Walmart/Sams/Autozone etc... Now all they offer is is deep cycle RV/Marine batteries.

I don't need the starting power or vibration resistance of a marine battery. I want a reasonably priced TRUE DEEP CYCLE NON MARINE battery.

[MrWizard]

'Pure Lead' would mean No Calcium or Antimony in the plates
not Alloy plates, pure lead

alloy is only a small percent

[T18skyguy]

Batteries plus has a battery with a guarantee of 5 years. It is both a starting battery and a deep cycle. The man who developed the original Optima sold the company, and started a new one. Sorry I can't remember the name of the battery, but seems pretty awesome and has brass post's. It's advertised as 100% lead(so cheaper ones are not all lead?) Anyway, it's 300 bucks. Buy online and pick up in the store is 270 bucks. The name of the battery starts with an x is as much as I remember.

[wa8yxm]

THe fact is folks look for 12 volt "Group" (24/27/29/31) batteries and for the most part they have never been True Deep Cycle long as I can remember.

GC-2 ARE True deep cycle.. These are six volt batteries when you buy 'em so you buy 'em in pairs and wire them in series 220 amp hours (C/20 rate) at 12 volt when wired in series (give or take a few amp hour) (There are not six volt batteries 9in RV's. only 12 volt that sometimes come in two halves.. Think about it a while and it makes sense)

Or you can get CG-12. These are 12 volt.. as I recall about 125 amp hours at 12 volt each Wire 'em up just like your Group 27s


Where to get GC-Batteries? Well GC stands for GOLF CAR so..

[Naio]

Wait a minute, Mex. You don't want the EPA involved but you are concerned about stunted IQ children and toxic waste sites? Not like we have a EPA anymore anyway, as of this year...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Woo woo...

Reading this thread reads right up there with the best of Heinlein and Crichton.

Ummmm...hate to break it to you but...

Not

Even

Close

All batteries of the 50's and 60's had the same percentage of Pb - Sb. 5% Sb

Then Delco Remy introduced the DELCOTRON. Pb - Ca. Lead calcium

From there things went downhill fast. Herb Tarklek and investors wrested the helm from the engineers. Then environmentalists jumped into the fray.

Cold Cranking Amps became king. Ampere Hours became outmoded.

More More More! Thinner Thinner Thinner plates. Not hard to figure out why. Thinly pasted thin grids are immeasurably easier thus more "productive" to produce. SARCASM Zillion Amps / Near translucent thin plates.

Wuuwee. Enter the Battery Council International

"Thou Shall Not Deviate! Produce Ultimate Recyclable Product!"

5% antimony 2% antimony 1% antimony mixes are harder to process than near alike alloy grids and plates.

H2SO4 must be inexpensive to recover and reprocess.

So the era of 5% antimony car jar batteries ended with a whimper.

Trojan was one of the last holdouts. But higher underhood temperatures, and automakers like GM Delco who brainfarted 15.0 volt alternator voltage regulators (like the 1116405) thinking "Oh looky here, our suckers, strike that, customers, will be FORCED to stick with our mega-priced calcium calcium DELCOTRON.

That same thinking brought forth the abortion grade Delco Voyager calcium calcium RV batteries. "Old Red Eye".

The 1116405 (1st true PWM controlled voltage regulator) boiled aftermarket batteries. Cables, hold downs and splash shields corroded. Batteries and customers fumed and NEW COKE 15 volt regulators vanished.

But it is the BCI who holds the industry standardization cards. THEY DO NOT WANT DEVIANTS in their recycle inventory. Pure lead? Oh, dream on...to fully extract 99.5% Pb is costly. Way way too costly for stockholders and bonus check golden parachute recipients.

The EPA jabbed them in the ass. So they sent battery manufacturing and product for recycling to Mexico. Let them deal with stunted IQ children and toxic waste sites. Wanna know why USA manufactured batteries cost a lot more? Read this paragraph again and again.

USA manufactured batteries cannot possibly compete price wise with burrito batteries. USA manufacturers are not stupid. They had to create a niche market for their auto/RV batteries. They may use recycled product but they can build a battery to higher standards (of course not all USA manufacturers strive for higher quality). But with NAFTA, follow the shell with the pea because now it's north of the border, now south of the border and on it's way back.

RAMCAR imports a significant percentage of its batteries from the Philippines. Oxide does the same with batteries from India.

Niche companies like Rolls & Surrette, insist on tradition. And meticulous engineering and production standards. X-ring standards are pricey to achieve and maintain. Compliance with wages and EPA standards is not cheap. Neither is purchasing virgin lead.

"Whoa! I gets ten years outta mah tires. If you don't, you gots a bigass problem I'm tellin' ya." Now is this a truly intelligent way to describe something?

We now resume normal programming. Brace yourself...

[paddykernahan]

My Mercedes diesel RV gets 16 MPG.

I have two Mazda Miatas with AGM batteries that were still working at 16 years. Replaced them because I thought they just can't last the much longer.

Dry camped a pop-up for a month. 12.8 VDC start to 12.4 VDC after one month.
Only used group 27 Optima AGM battery for water pump, LED overhead lighting and USB port to charge phones.
Would use lights while eating/cooking/cleaning. Reading lights were AA powered puck lights.

Converter had some parasitic draw that I was never able to figure out so put a marine grade battery switch to completely disconnect battery when not in actual use.

Would leave the overhead LED lights switch on and when lights were needed or water pump was needed, would use the battery switch.

Propane refrigerator needs no 12VDC to operate. Used catalytic propane heater that also required no 12VDC.

As you can see we were ultra conservative with 12VDC power.

Battery still going strong at 6 years when we sold the pop-up

Now very interested in a true deep cycle to replace automotive battery that Mercedes puts in their vans for RV power.

[Naio]

Yeah, if you are only getting 3-4 years out of your batteries you should either buy cheap batteries or change the way you take care of them. Or just spend a lot of money.

I buy used batteries, and figure if they last me past 10 years it's gravy.

Have you considered a small solar panel?

[red31]

Desert Captain wrote:
Apologies for the "delusional" remark, my bad.

Brother gets a year maybe two, he never uses his factory G24 but refuses to let the WFCO float or disconnect. So its always drained.

I showed up with a 100 watt solar that was limited to 13.8v (ecoworthy). He had a NEW AGM hooked to ye ole flooded 24, voltage was 11.6v. He added a disconnect and last visit I asked why he did not turn OFF, "I have solar". :h he's got money to waste on batteries.

I'm guessing there are lot of folks like him!

[TomG2]

So far, it looks like folks who love and take tender care of their batteries get better service than those who don't. Surprise surprise!

[Desert_Captain]

Apologies for the "delusional" remark, my bad. I have heard some pretty tall tales on this Forum over the years and many involve magical batteries that last seemingly forever but then I have read here about brakes lasting 200,000 miles and Mercedes diesels that get 20+ mpg...

The southern California Trojan rep made the 3 year planned obsolescence comment about 20 years ago... I'm sure they are probably better now though not much has changed in battery technology. The Chandlery I worked in was selling dozens of Trojan golf cart batteries every month for use as the "House BanK" on cruising sailboats.

The battery industries business model is based upon people replacing their batteries every 3 - 5 years. The better the care, less abuse and use the longer they will last. Yep deep cycles tend to last longer as most get far less use in the real world.

If you have a high tech multi stage charger, perfectly maintain the electrolyte levels 24/7/365 and use them very little I guess from what I read here just about anything is possible. On boats they are in hard use 24/7/365 as most are driving DC refrigeration systems along with radars, auto pilots windlasses etc..

My point is very few RV'ers are huge consumers of DC power and quality deep cycles, when properly maintained are very reliable. Any deep cycle battery has a finite/fixed number of deep discharge cycles built into it and nothing can change that number. When you have completed the rated number of deep discharge cycles the performance of that battery will begin to deteriorate. If a battery has made it to 10 years it has not had many deep cycle discharges over that period... you cannot change the physics of a wet cell battery.

As always.... opinions and YMMV

:C

[BFL13]

This whole thing is about not having enough room on the tongue for two batteries. Solution is to:

A. Carry two 100ah AGMs inside the rig as some folks do--under the sofa up front is popular so you can drill a hole in the floor under the sofa and run wires down there and up to the tongue to connect the batteries.

B. Carry another battery or more in the truck and on arrival, put them on the ground next to the tongue and use jumper cables to connect to the one on the tongue.

C. Bring the generator to run the converter to recharge the batteries as required. You don't need to carry gas for it, since it has enough in it to do a couple of recharges and you are only off-grid a few days so that should be plenty of gas.

For this job, for A. I like the "12100" AGMs I have now in the truck camper. For B. you can't beat Sams or Costco 6s in the States for price. (You can jumper a pair of 6s with a 12 on the tongue for while camping and then at home put the 12 on the converter and the 6s on a separate maintainer.)

[JaxDad]

Desert Captain wrote:
All batteries have a planned obsolescence of 3 years.

Will some batteries last longer? You betcha!

Are the people on this and other Forums who claim to have gotten 12+ years out of their batteries delusional.... You betcha!

:C

Im one of those 'delusional' people then.

The battery in my little Kubota tractor is the one it came with back in 2003. The coach and house batteries in my C are what I put in it back in 2011 when I bought it. My DW' 2008 SUV also has the OEM battery in it.

But then I oil the batteries when they're new and so never boil them dry or crank them till they're so hot the plates buckle.

A battery that fails at 3 or 4 years is just junk to start with IMHO.

[Mortimer_Brewst]

SoundGuy wrote:

Desert Captain wrote:
All batteries have a planned obsolescence of 3 years. Anytime you get 3 years of reliable service from ANY battery, starting or deep cycle, you just got your monies worth, {this from a regional Trojan rep back when I sold batteries for a living}, any additional use is just gravy.

Will some batteries last longer? You betcha! It depends on how and where you use them not to mention how they are maintained. Are the people on this and other Forums who claim to have gotten 12+ years out of their batteries delusional.... You betcha!

Sure glad we have an "expert" here on the forums to confirm what I knew all along - I am close to being delusional. :W My Interstate G27 is now 10 yrs old and still going strong. :B Only 3 yrs? - hogwash. :R

You guys are living in different worlds. Extreme temperatures are very tough on batteries. The summer heat in Tucson would definitely qualify as extreme. I would expect a battery to have a shorter lifespan in southern Arizona.
My experience here in the Midwest is that after 4 years I had better keep a close eye on the battery (load test). I used to be able to get 6-7 years out of a battery. Now it's more like 4-5. Other people might get more. I tend to have a lot of short trips due to where I live.

[landyacht318]

Trojans's group 24 27 or group 31 are rated at only half the total cycles as their t-105 or t-1275 legitimate deep cycle batteies. They are top quality marine/rv trolling batteries but their plate thickness and construction is no where near the same as their industrial lines of true deep cycle

But I guess 'true deep cycle' is now subjective.

Sams club or costco gc2s will likely double the cycle life of 2 group 27 trojans in the same usage, and at a fraction of the price.

The difference is the trojan 27s will have much higher CCAs to still start an engine when depleted.

A deep cycle sticker does not make a deep cycle battery

Be smarter than the marketers

[owenssailor]

Trojan makes a 12V deep cycle. http://www.batteriesinaflash.com/trojan-scs150-12v-100ah-group-24-superior-deep-cycle-battery

I think Interstate does as well.

walmart did have a true deep cycle - the battery hd a suffix of DC in the model number