Which type of battery

vinniem

Hi All, My camper leasure battery is shot...wont hold a charge from alternator longer than a day or two. Its 100Ah 800AEN battery, my question is what type of battery should I now buy.. lead acid or gel? Also should I go for a bigger Ah? Thanks
Vinnie

vinniem

vinniem wrote: »

Also should I go for a bigger Ah?

Do you need more Ah? If you are dropping below 12.2v (50% capacity) between charges then the answer is yes.

Bargain for a full traction lead acid.

Gels are too expensive and sensitive, I'd stick with a decent lead-acid.

2 of these in series is hard to beat for more amp hours.

Check the charge parameters of your charging system and ensure it is compatible.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/BatteryMaintenance/Charging.aspx

niloc1951

vinniem wrote: »

Hi All, My camper leasure battery is shot...wont hold a charge from alternator longer than a day or two. Its 100Ah 800AEN battery, my question is what type of battery should I now buy.. lead acid or gel? Also should I go for a bigger Ah? Thanks
Vinnie

You only need a gel if you plan to put your motorhome on its side or turn it upside down

Best value in the long run is a 'wet' lead/acid semi traction. One of the leading brands which you can be sure of is the Banner Energy Bull range.

Beware of ordinary starter batteries being re-labled and sold as 'Leisure' batteries.

I found this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12v-105AH-Trojan-Ultra-Deep-Cycle-Leisure-Battery-5-year-Warranty-/111005107526?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_BoatEquipment_Accessories_SM&hash=item19d86b8546.

I reckon the earlier link I posted is just a semi-traction battery...cunningly worded.

The 24 TMX in the ebay link is semi-traction I don't think Trojan do full traction 12volt batteries of that scale.

vinniem

Sir liamalot & niloc1951 thanks so much, great advise. I will follow that last link u sent liam. Thanks

Vinnie

holyhutzpa

There's an interesting article about how stop/start technology has forced some manufacturers (Bosch) to up their game where it comes to car batteries, and that the current S5 range of bosches can be used as leisure batteries...
http://www.atlanticmotorhomeservices.co.uk/battery-technology.php

niloc1951

holyhutzpa wrote: »

There's an interesting article about how stop/start technology has forced some manufacturers (Bosch) to up their game where it comes to car batteries, and that the current S5 range of bosches can be used as leisure batteries...
http://www.atlanticmotorhomeservices.co.uk/battery-technology.php

I have heard that HYMER are now using these batteries for habitation requirements.
Before buying I would check that your existing on-board charger has an output profile compatible with Silver Calcium technology batteries. Most modern charges have selectable outputs for lead/acid, AGM, Gel, etc., one of which is probably suitable for SC, but which one

nailer8

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

2 of these in series is hard to beat for more amp hours.

Check the charge parameters of your charging system and ensure it is compatible.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/BatteryMaintenance/Charging.aspx

That's an interesting way to up the AH. Is that a better idea than putting 2 x 12V in parallel. I bought two Elecsol 100AH and put them in Parallel to give 200ah in theory but i don't think i am getting the performance I should be from them.

I would recommend Tayna though, super fast delivery <48h and the batteries were perfectly packed, no way they could have been damaged. Good communication also, answered questions via email very fast.

http://www.tayna.co.uk/ELECSOL-100-Carbon-Fibre-Leisure-Battery-Positive-Front-Right-P7827.html

paddyp

Stay well away from the rebadging enterprise that is elecsol, see the thread sirliamalot linked to recently.

nailer8

That is worrying. I had a look but couldn't find that link. Any chance you can post it here.

holyhutzpa

Elecsol thread... Probably best to take a seat before reading it if you own Elecsol batteries

paddyp

This guy is a regular Arthur Dailey expect to see him back under a new name.

The latest Annual Accounts submitted to Companies House for the year up to 30/04/2012 reported 'cash at bank' of £1, 'liabilities' worth £4,316, 'net worth' of £-448,266 and 'assets' worth £1. Elecsol International Limited's risk score was amended on 15/03/2013.
Company Register

Status Company not trading

nailer8

Well pants to that. I only bought too 100ah Elecsol batteries last Feb. Not cheap either.
I wild camp 90% of the time so good batteries are essential.
They are still working so i guess just fingers crossed and hope i get some bit of use out of them, no point in claiming warranty should anything happen down the line.

Moomat

I'd be wary of buying batteries in the UK. Read the return conditions first!
I bought an Elecsol battery from Tayna a few months back, battery arrived very quick and packaged well but unfortunately it wouldn't hold a charge. Contacted the guys in Tayna and was told I'd have to cover the return shipping costs even if they confirmed the battery to be faulty. I then discovered most couriers will not accept batteries but eventually got a company to accept it. Thankfully, after inspection the guys agreed in Tayna that it was faulty and refunded me. All in all, after postage and the stress of worrying whether Tayna would accept it's faulty, I would of been much better buying in Ireland.

I got a Banner Energy Bull 80ah from Europower in Finglas as the replacment and it's lasted me 3 days wildcamping using led interior lights/phone/laptop/ipod dock at varying times without dropping below 12.4V

I'm sceptical about the Bosch Silverline as a leisure battery. Mostly because I can't find any charge recommendations. Discharge/cycle life data or even a modest charge termination voltage.
This is very disappointing. All I can find is a whitewash and slick brochures full of claims unsubstantiated by any documented research.
I'd like to give Bosch the benefit of the doubt and will email them myself for this information as I reckon my starter isn't going to make it through the Winter. Given the modicum of information out there on this battery I think it'd make an excellent starter battery to compliment a deep cycle bank. As it seems pretty suitable as a starter with deep cycle capabilities. eg. can run the radio for days and doesn't mind being discharged by charging leisure batteries. As regards being a deep cycle battery with starter capabilities I have my doubts. Surely the density of the plates is still going to be a prohibitive.

Another thing that bothers me is that it's a sealed battery. Batteries require maintenance, even maintenance free ones. If you can't water them then they can't last as long as those you can. You simply can't fit a lifetime's worth of electrolyte into a battery. You can however put just enough, maybe, to see you through a warranty.

Lots of batteries use calcium.

wrote:

"The advantages of flooded batteries are their well-proven reliability, their long deep discharge cycle life, and their lower cost. They can be made from thick antimony alloy grids which are more suitable for long cycle life than the calcium alloy grids typically used in VRLA batteries. They contain more electrolyte than VRLA batteries which provides good deep discharge recovery and which also acts as a heat sink to keep them cool. Another advantage is that they can be maintained by addition of water."

nailer8 wrote: »

That's an interesting way to up the AH. Is that a better idea than putting 2 x 12V in parallel. I bought two Elecsol 100AH and put them in Parallel to give 200ah in theory but i don't think i am getting the performance I should be from them.

Doesn't make any difference it's more to do with the caliber of battery you can get and cost. Lead acid batteries are a collection of 2.15v cells. Makes no odds how you connect them; internally, externally, parallel or series as long as the resistance between the connections are minimum and loading is balanced.

Trojan do a range of 12v that are almost as good but near twice the price.

I've seen the T-105's in golf carts and scissor lifts both are markets where you can't simply explain to the users to not over-deplete the batteries because they will simply ignore you. 6v battery applications are far more demanding than "leisure" batteries and have established themselves in industry that over-depletion is the norm.
Next round I'm going 6v.

Here's another performer by Crown

RE: Elecsol, they're an average battery nothing more. My two x 125Ah's are giving me aprox. 180Ah with the eldest heavily self-discharging from soft shorts, after 3.5 and 3 years, and considering the life they've had that doesn't surprise me. That carbon fiber technology that allows you deeper discharge is a load of cobblers. Which is very annoying because they're actually encouraging people to damage their product.
The battery compared to any other as a common lead acid is competitive, it's just not worth the money.

http://www.sterling-power.com/support-faq-2.htm

This is the most important information you can ascertain about a battery.
This compares the amount of cycles a battery will provide given the average level of discharge.

Lifecycle vs discharge..jpg
from
http://www.trojanbatteryre.com/PDF/datasheets/T105_TrojanRE_Data_Sheets.pdf

If anyone finds better at similar cost please post.

[EDIT: Crown have the exact same bloody graph...feckin' chancers the lot of them...I hear they are better than Trojans from a Trojan advocate though]

I'd compare this over anything else when buying a battery.

nailer8

nailer8 wrote: »

I bought two Elecsol 100AH and put them in Parallel to give 200ah in theory but i don't think i am getting the performance I should be from them.

This might offer an explanation should you want to give elecsol the benefit of the doubt.

Worth a read too.

nailer8

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

This might offer an explanation should you want to give elecsol the benefit of the doubt.

Worth a read too.

Thanks for that, clearly you are the resident expert on all things battery related.

I have done a number of tests, not exactly scientific but every time i come up with roughly the same results.
The batteries seem to hold charge fine. Even over a week the voltage stays up.
Whither i go for a fairly big load e.g. 10 amps or a small load 1-2 amps i seem to get roughly 40AH out of the bank before the voltage drops below 12

Also it appears to fall off a cliff. I dont want them to get over discharged so i am watching the voltage but often it is c.12.2 volts for ages then i check it an hour later and it's 10 volts.

The charger in the camper also has an AH meter and that never seems to put more than 50AH into the batteries. So i tried a different charger. No AH on this but same result when i drained the batteries.

It wouldnt surprise me if they are suffering from sulfation as they were flattened once or twice without my realising and left flat for a while before being recharged which i know is a killer on batteries. Still only about 8 months old.

I also have a 500w microwave which draws 900w from an inverter. At c90% efficiency that is pulling 85amps from the battery. I rarely use it and when i do it is only on a low setting (i.e. it cycles between 900w & 100w about every 10 sec) and only for a min or two. Would that sort of draw be very bad for a bank of leisure batteries? I was hoping with the batteries in parallel a pull of c. 50a each wouldn't be unreasonable for a few min.

paddyp

nailer8 wrote: »

Thanks for that, clearly you are the resident expert on all things battery related.

I have done a number of tests, not exactly scientific but every time i come up with roughly the same results.
The batteries seem to hold charge fine. Even over a week the voltage stays up.
Whither i go for a fairly big load e.g. 10 amps or a small load 1-2 amps i seem to get roughly 40AH out of the bank before the voltage drops below 12

Also it appears to fall off a cliff. I dont want them to get over discharged so i am watching the voltage but often it is c.12.2 volts for ages then i check it an hour later and it's 10 volts.

The charger in the camper also has an AH meter and that never seems to put more than 50AH into the batteries. So i tried a different charger. No AH on this but same result when i drained the batteries.

It wouldnt surprise me if they are suffering from sulfation as they were flattened once or twice without my realising and left flat for a while before being recharged which i know is a killer on batteries. Still only about 8 months old.

I also have a 500w microwave which draws 900w from an inverter. At c90% efficiency that is pulling 85amps from the battery. I rarely use it and when i do it is only on a low setting (i.e. it cycles between 900w & 100w about every 10 sec) and only for a min or two. Would that sort of draw be very bad for a bank of leisure batteries? I was hoping with the batteries in parallel a pull of c. 50a each wouldn't be unreasonable for a few min.

Disconnect the batteries and test them individually before you go any further, one duff battery will quickly flatten the good one. Charge for at least 24hours before testing them. A cell shorting in one would account for the sudden drop to 10v and would flatten the good battery and cooke the electrolyte in the bad one.

nailer8

nailer8 wrote: »

Thanks for that, clearly you are the resident expert on all things battery related.

Thanks but I'm no expert though...I used to recommend those elecsol lemons.

nailer8 wrote: »

I have done a number of tests, not exactly scientific but every time i come up with roughly the same results.
The batteries seem to hold charge fine. Even over a week the voltage stays up.
Whither i go for a fairly big load e.g. 10 amps or a small load 1-2 amps i seem to get roughly 40AH out of the bank before the voltage drops below 12

I can offer a hypothesis but the more you can confirm will help eliminate a lot of guesswork.

That's fairly consistent with my findings I've declared my 250Ah bank a 180Ah bank for convenience sake...I'm suspicious it's still lower than this. I hit 12.2v after about 40Ah discharge. If idled 24hr it'd settle about 12.3/12.4v and maybe give another 20Ah-ish more to 12.2v actual. I discharge 50% below the C20 "rating" most cycles.

As Paddyp says one battery can pull it's partner down. Last time I swapped one for two I noticed my strongest battery was 2/3 as good as the bank and subsequently charged much faster.
Consider the elecsol 100Ah is reputed as an 80Ah when new.

nailer8 wrote: »

Also it appears to fall off a cliff. I don't want them to get over discharged so i am watching the voltage but often it is c.12.2 volts for ages then i check it an hour later and it's 10 volts.

A dishonest voltmeter might be responsible. Sounds like a Toyota Corolla fuel gauge. Verify what your meter is telling you with another trusted meter preferably a reliable multimeter. Probe the battery terminals from time to time and see if there's any discrepancy.
Next time voltage plummets separate the batteries and compare them. If they stay the same they make good partners. If one falls in voltage and the other rises you have now identified a suspect.

Does the meter share wires with any other circuits/loads?
If the meter is on a current carrying circuit it will be inaccurate.

nailer8 wrote: »

The charger in the camper also has an AH meter and that never seems to put more than 50AH into the batteries. So i tried a different charger. No AH on this but same result when i drained the batteries.

Are you charging across the batteries? One charger lead on the +ive on battery A and the other charger lead -ive of battery B?
Unless you do this then the charge is not balanced and the furthest battery in line is not fully charging.

Is the loading balanced? All 12volt power being drawn across the bank?

nailer8 wrote: »

It wouldn't surprise me if they are suffering from sulphation as they were flattened once or twice without my realising and left flat for a while before being recharged which i know is a killer on batteries. Still only about 8 months old.

Best to equalise them directly after these types of missadventures or float for a week, discharge, charge, float for a week

nailer8 wrote: »

I also have a 500w microwave which draws 900w from an inverter. At c90% efficiency that is pulling 85amps from the battery. I rarely use it and when i do it is only on a low setting (i.e. it cycles between 900w & 100w about every 10 sec) and only for a min or two. Would that sort of draw be very bad for a bank of leisure batteries? I was hoping with the batteries in parallel a pull of c. 50a each wouldn't be unreasonable for a few min.

That's a sizable inverter for a humble bank. 85A is a serious load, I hope there's a DC fuse in there. The batteries can do that sort of work every now and again for short spells but I wouldn't do it until the inverter starts ringing.

Here's a theory, that could fit...almost...kinda...
...but there's a lot of assumptions;
An elecsol 100Ah is probably an 80 - 85Ah battery. Load test it to the C20 rate if you have doubts. Lets say both batteries with age and sulphation are 85Ah each = 170Ah bank

170Ah at C20 rate in 27°C. (assuming that's the spec. - there's no way of knowing, there is no spec for elecsols)
So 170Ah = 135Ah @ 5°C (assuming no self discharge and loading is balanced)
so 135Ah/2 = 67.5 disposable Ah...
... ....that's about 30mins of microwave time that takes twice as long to cook on a modulated inverter.

So if the first time you see 12.0v after a continuous discharge, you may actually be 12.2v/12.3v after a days rest so really only 40% discharged.
60% of 135Ah = 54Ah to be charged (assuming voltage corresponds accurately to a state of charge).


So where's the rest? Do your batteries float or self discharge? How much do you trust your charger? Does it compensate for the 20% lead acid charging inefficiency? Is it temperature compensating?
Does it push only 40Ah or is 40Ah actually in the battery? Does it actually charge the batteries to 100% (if it's done too quickly then probably not).
When it says it's giving 14.3v are you actually getting 14.3v at the battery posts?
How much loss is compensated for by the alternator or other generators?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3x-3-1-2-Digit-DC-200V-200A-Blue-LED-Counter-Panel-Amp-Voltage-Meter-w-Shunt-/330971720327?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d0f73aa87

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/smartgauge.html

http://www.bogartengineering.com/products/TriMetric

http://www.clippermarineusa.com/product.php?id=37341

http://www.sterling-power.com/products-pmp.htm

nailer8

nailer8 wrote: »

Also it appears to fall off a cliff. I dont want them to get over discharged so i am watching the voltage but often it is c.12.2 volts for ages then i check it an hour later and it's 10 volts.

Just dawned on me there, my silly Chinese cig. lighter voltmeter does this all the time. It's spring-loaded. Likely loose connection on voltmeter wiring or bad contact, weak fuse spring maybe.