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Leisure batteries - advice on what to buy


cairanvanrooyen

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10 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

No battery warranty is worth the paper its printed on. They only cover faulty manufacture, not ignorant use wrecking them.

This is often said, but my lad has had 2 car batteries replaced free by Euro Car Parts in the last few years. I was sceptical and as amazed by this as many others here will be, but it goes to show it's worth a try. Mind you, I doubt you'd get much joy if you turned up with a full domestic bank! ;)

 

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3 hours ago, cairanvanrooyen said:

I am in the market for 5no new 110ah 12v leisure batteries.

 

The market seems saturated with different technology and a high variability in cost - from £80 to £1000 per battery on Midland Chandlers.

 

I have a simple set-up, common in many boats: 12v batteries, 12v LED's, 12v fridge, inverter etc. I am planning on installing PV shortly. I am a live-aboard and constantly cruise, so rely on batteries.

 

My question is: should I go for cheapest (£80'ish each) and accept they have 300 cycles and need replacing after a year or so, or should i go mid range? My budget is no more than £800 all in, ideally less...

 

Also, is there anything to look out for or avoid, in your experiences?

 

Cheers

In my view it rather depends on your usage and how you care for your batteries. 

 

If you don't look after the batteries well. especially if they are variations of lead acid design then you can destroy an expensive battery just as quickly as a cheap one.

 

If  one has a holiday boat it is often just as well to buy something at the cheaper end of the scale and consider the batteries as consumable items.  However, as you are a liveaboard it is likely to be better to buy something a bit more up the scale as long as you can look after them correctly.

 

Some people have got on well with Lead Carbon batteries that have some good characteristics as a domestic battery at around £240 per 100AH.  Leoch seem to be the main suppliers of this type.

 

https://www.tayna.co.uk/industrial-batteries/leoch/plhc100/

https://cdn.tayna.com/datasheets/PLH%2BC 100.pdf

 

Tayna are a good online supplier no matter what you choose to buy.

Edited by churchward
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Our battery bank consists of four Multicell Agm's. Like in most things, I am ignorant in the workings of electrickery. 

We are all led,  12v fridge and freezer and only run 240v when on shoreline or with the travelpower on.

This morning at 0900, the smartguage was showing 90% and the inverter panel 12.5v. Is that a reasonable reading for twelve hours without charging?

It does strike me that after nine years plus from our battery bank, they must need replacing, but do they, yet?

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8 minutes ago, johnmck said:

Our battery bank consists of four Multicell Agm's. Like in most things, I am ignorant in the workings of electrickery. 

We are all led,  12v fridge and freezer and only run 240v when on shoreline or with the travelpower on.

This morning at 0900, the smartguage was showing 90% and the inverter panel 12.5v. Is that a reasonable reading for twelve hours without charging?

It does strike me that after nine years plus from our battery bank, they must need replacing, but do they, yet?

if you are at 12.5v in the morning there is nowt wrong and no need to change batteries yet.  12.5v with a rested battery with no load running would suggest it is around 80% SOC but if there was something running when you looked at the voltage that would drop the voltage a bit so the Smartguage will be correct.

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1 hour ago, johnmck said:

 

It does strike me that after nine years plus from our battery bank, they must need replacing, but do they, yet?

Hard to make a case for replacing them if they're still giving you all you need from them John.  Taking into account their likely failure mechanism, ie steadily losing capacity over a long period,  I'd wait til they start to struggle (unless there's some other pressing need).

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3 hours ago, johnmck said:

It does strike me that after nine years plus from our battery bank, they must need replacing, but do they, yet?

 

Your domestic batteries need replacing when the capacity has fallen to a level that you can no longer do what you what you want to.

 

For example if you normally move every day, when the TV and lights go off before you want to go to bed, or if you normally move after a 48 hour stay and the batteries are flat after 24 hours.

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6 hours ago, bizzard said:

We litter picked the top end of Stort for BW over seven years using our open pick boat ''Bin Laden'', we got through about four Minkota electric outboards. One Shield 110 ah battery lasted for the 4 hour or so pick, with very intensive use, full power, sudden reversing if we spotted the top of a beer can floating in the reeds at the side. back and forth.  I used to collect all the cigarette lighters we found floating, clean and recondition them for my own use. Still using them, not bought a lighter for 10 years.  We did take a spare battery and connecting cables along with us just in case but never had to use them.  Gave the police a lift in Bin Laden once they were looking for a someone with memory loss wandering on the towpath.

what happened to the MKs ?

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3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Hard to make a case for replacing them if they're still giving you all you need from them John.  Taking into account their likely failure mechanism, ie steadily losing capacity over a long period,  I'd wait til they start to struggle (unless there's some other pressing need).

We have always been careful/anal regarding the batteries. We tend to move every day and when we don't,  run the engine until the smartguage is showing 100%.

Since we ditched laptops in favour of tablets, the batteries seem far happier. Only problem, this week, technically, Ali is at work. So her laptop is on all day. But, the bank rarely gets below 85% even on this regime, so at the mo, we can live with them. 

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3 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Bad memories of Elecsol batteries, replaced more than I care to remember.

I never did find out what was wrong with them.

We had 6 of the things. Most hyped product of the time. Failed spectacularly. Warranty was only worth lighting fire with.

One of my worst decisions.

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5 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

We had 6 of the things. Most hyped product of the time. Failed spectacularly. Warranty was only worth lighting fire with.

One of my worst decisions.

Yes the original Elecsols were fantastic, lasted us 6 years easily, then the company was bought by someone else who changed the batteries to the cheapest worst ordinary type of battery and traded on the original company's reputation for a few years until selling out again. We bought a second set just after the original change and they didn't even last one summer, then after a big fight we got our money back and bought elsewhere.

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21 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Agreed, I used ABS for our start battery. Be aware that if you buy sealed you will be limited as to the maximum charging voltage and it will make things far more difficult when it becomes time to diagnose potential battery problems.

 

Maximum charging voltage is only an issue with advanced alternator controllers or land line/solar chargers. Its no problem if they are programmable but might be if they are not.

 

I am with Tracy - only buy expensive if you truly know how to look after them and can keep them very well charged.

 

Thank you everyone for your responses.

 

I do not have the knowledge of experience of maintaining batteries, apart from topping them up and keeping a watchful eye on their voltage to ensure i do not discharge too much.

 

Based on this, I think I will go for 5 of these https://advancedbatterysupplies.co.uk/product/6-x-advanced-sl-110-leisure-batteries/ once i check they fit in my battery tray.

 

Perhaps as time advances and i become more competent and confident I can go for something a bit more fancy/complex.

 

The comment above concerns me a little - I am purchasing a new Victron MultiPlus 12/3000/120-16 Inverter Charger, which i assume I can control the max charging voltage and my new solar controller can do that, but I do not have the facility (that I know of) to control the voltage that my alternator charges to...is this something to be worried about?

 

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5 minutes ago, cairanvanrooyen said:

I do not have the facility (that I know of) to control the voltage that my alternator charges to...is this something to be worried about?

Nope. Your alternator voltage will be well within their allowable charge voltage. It’s only when you start adding external alternator controllers that you have to be careful. 

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No. Just measure it at the batteries and see that you are getting a good 14.4 v with all the chargers off apart from the engine, the batteries nearly charged and the engine going a bit faster than idle.  Ot should not be higher than 14.6 V.

 

If the voltages are out the regulator will need to be changed.  They usually are ok if you have a modern alternator.

 

N

 

 

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13 minutes ago, cairanvanrooyen said:

 

Thank you everyone for your responses.

 

I do not have the knowledge of experience of maintaining batteries, apart from topping them up and keeping a watchful eye on their voltage to ensure i do not discharge too much.

 

Based on this, I think I will go for 5 of these https://advancedbatterysupplies.co.uk/product/6-x-advanced-sl-110-leisure-batteries/ once i check they fit in my battery tray.

 

Perhaps as time advances and i become more competent and confident I can go for something a bit more fancy/complex.

 

The comment above concerns me a little - I am purchasing a new Victron MultiPlus 12/3000/120-16 Inverter Charger, which i assume I can control the max charging voltage and my new solar controller can do that, but I do not have the facility (that I know of) to control the voltage that my alternator charges to...is this something to be worried about?

 

 

ABS don't see to say what technology those batteries use.I suspect they have lead calcium plates rather than than lead antinomy and if so they are good for about 14.7 or 14.8 volts - check with ABS. I note they are sealed so you will find it difficult to diagnose a faulty cell and apart from doing a long discharge test it is not that easy to assess the remaining capacity and degree of sulphation. If you are happy with that then fine.

 

I would expect the Victron and your solar controller can be set for battery type and you should find the voltage settings for each type in the manuals. I think setting for sealed batteries will be fine but check those voltages in the manual.

 

 

Personally I would go for the L110 because its an open cell battery.

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6 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

ABS don't see to say what technology those batteries use.I suspect they have lead calcium plates rather than than lead antinomy and if so they are good for about 14.7 or 14.8 volts - check with ABS. I note they are sealed so you will find it difficult to diagnose a faulty cell and apart from doing a long discharge test it is not that easy to assess the remaining capacity and degree of sulphation. If you are happy with that then fine.

 

I would expect the Victron and your solar controller can be set for battery type and you should find the voltage settings for each type in the manuals. I think setting for sealed batteries will be fine but check those voltages in the manual.

 

 

Personally I would go for the L110 because its an open cell battery.

 

For some reason, these batteries are still advertised as maintenance free. It does seem to confuse the approach to take for the owner, on the kind of monitoring regime. Open cell would kind of indicate the occasional checking of fluid levels. This has always been the kind of monitoring I fail on. I see the sense in your suggestion for choosing an open cell battery, but some of us, myself, I hope that having a 'smart' charger will at least do as much to prolong the life of a battery. Not really sure if an open cell battery is the right kind, for someone like me. 

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Higgs said:

 

For some reason, these batteries are still advertised as maintenance free. It does seem to confuse the approach to take for the owner, on the kind of monitoring regime. Open cell would kind of indicate the occasional checking of fluid levels. This has always been the kind of monitoring I fail on. I see the sense in your suggestion for choosing an open cell battery, but some of us, myself, I hope that having a 'smart' charger will at least do as much to prolong the life of a battery. Not really sure if an open cell battery is the right kind, for someone like me. 

 

 

 

 

Modern lead calcium batteries gas far less or not at all than lead antinomy so with almost any sensible charging voltage they hardly use an water it any. They also seem to have a greater volume reservoir than older batteries so they virtually are maintenance free but with the advantage that if needs must you can get a hydrometer into the cells and look into cells (boat design willing) to assess gassing and cell water use. In the six years I had my Exides they used minimal water.

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I recently bought a lead calcium battery that was open cell according to the illustration.  It was not, but googling suggests that a lead calcium battery should never need topping up, so I'll see how I get on.  If it genuinely doesn't need any attention then that is another routine task that can be crossed out and some kit I don't need to carry on the boat.

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34 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

I recently bought a lead calcium battery that was open cell according to the illustration.  It was not, but googling suggests that a lead calcium battery should never need topping up, so I'll see how I get on.  If it genuinely doesn't need any attention then that is another routine task that can be crossed out and some kit I don't need to carry on the boat.

Did it seem to have a strip of plastic set into the lid along the centre of it length. If so it might lever up to expose the cells but don't try until you have a good reason.

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