How long do your/have your lead acid batteries lasted.

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mocruising

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I have seven batteries on the boat. Six are all 120 AH one for domestic 12 V one 12 V engine start and four are in Parallel/series as a 24 V domestic bank. The seventh is a small lead acid for the gen. set start, this was replaced last season after five years of service. All six of the 120 AH batteries are six years old now and still giving good service is this unusual/usual or exceptional for a battery life span.
 
I would say, thats good.

Mine normally last about 4-5 years, buit it depends on how much actual cruising you do, on charge in the marina, they will last ages, at anchor, being charged and discharged, last a lot less, tey only ave so many charge/discharge cycles in them. All this is dependant on what type of batteries they are flooded sealed/AGM/Gel/flooded open and how you have looked after them.

I've just fitted AGM's to my boat, 8 of them @ 110ah each, thats 440ah @ 24v. But so far since fitting them, have been marina bound for various reasons, next year serious cruising again, so I'll wait and see.
 
Between 10 and 3 years. The usual reason for a battery packing up, so I've discovered, is that it's been allowed to stand in a discharged state.

Old fashioned, heavy duty, non-sealed batteries are the ones I go for, at the lowest possible cost.

Labels are meaningless, except as a ploy to drive up prices. If it has a good thick plate when you look inside it's OK!!
 
I have always bought proper deep cycle batteries for service and good heavy duty cranking batteries for engine start. All are in a dry, clean, protected position and kept topped up when I am not on the boat via solar panels. They are regularly checked for electrolyte level. So far these have lasted 7 years and are still showing 13.4 volts. Similar batteries on my last boat were 9 years old and still going strong when I sold her. Cheap batteries for deep cycle use are IMO a false economy.
 
The last pair of Sonnenschein Dryfit gel batteries lasted over ten years on our boat - with continuous charging in the marina. So long as the batteries are matched to a suitable charger the main thing is to avoid leaving them in a discharged state.
 
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So far these have lasted 7 years and are still showing 13.4 volts.

[/ QUOTE ]13.4v? That's impressively high for a lead-acid battery. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I've just replaced my domestic bank, after about 10 years. I had 6x110Ah Delco 2000 batteries - sealed, maintenance-free design. The lead-calcium chemistry of these sealed batteries is quite resistant to overcharge, which suits my charging regime as I have an Adverc booster fitted to the alternator. I also like the fact that sealed batteries are clean and fit-and-forget. I've replaced them with Merlin Powerpack batteries, which are a similar design. The secret to long battery life is to minimise the depth of discharge, and having a large domestic bank really helps achieve this.

I replaced the 10 year old starter battery at the same time, as a precaution, and this is just an ordinary sealed cranking battery.
 
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So far these have lasted 7 years and are still showing 13.4 volts.

13.4v? That's impressively high for a lead-acid battery.

[/ QUOTE ] I'm relieved to hear it though. Ours show 13.5 - 13.6 when I test each week or so and I thought our multimeter was duff. I check after letting them stand a while and running the water pump for a few seconds to get rid of the surface charge.
 
I would strongly suspect yopur test meter is a little out.
If its a digital one, I would check te voltage with a good, moving needle type, but needs to be a good one!
 
Changed our last batteries (4 x AC Delco 102amp service and Exide 65amp starter) after over 14 years before setting off full time cruising again. That was five years ago. Gave the old batteries to friends in our little boatyard and one is STILL being used, though I don't know it's actual capacity/voltage now! Another was fitted in the yard crane and used to start that, and that was only ditched two years ago.

We replaced the old set with identical batteries (now named Delphi) and these are in perfect condition. HOWEVER, our battery regime is strict - we only EVER discharge to a maximum of 10 - 15% of capacity (measured by Pulstronik meter) before recharging. We have a permanently fitted 30w solar panel (supplemented by a 55w when cruising) a Rutland 913 windgen and Aqua4gen towed generator - both only when cruising. An Adverv charge controller looks after the batteries superbly.

I agree with those who say keep the batteries charged. We very seldom use marinas, but do have a multi-stage battery charger for those occasions when we do, or when over-wintering somewhere.

I have no idea whether our batteries are any better than any other make, but we would not hesitate to replace them with the same next time.

Interestingly they are maintenance free, which we had many doubts about initially, but those doubts have long disappeared. I have yet to visit the boat (now laid up ashore for the winter) and find the voltage showing less than 12.6 - 12.7v.

Just my 2p worth.
 
Tanks for the link, their trojan prices are very competitive!

May consider them when I fit my second domestic bank.
 
I had delphis, before my latest lot of AGM's didnt do too well, really, but I was discharging mine down to max 50% mostly only 70% they lasted 5 years, but to be honest I was nursing them for the last year. I'm trying these AGM's and hope they do better, I have all the bells and whistles when it comes to chargers etc.

I intend to fit another bank of batteries (450ah @ 24v) and may well go the deep cycle 6v open lead acid route.
 
Eleven years (though little used by previous owner in first 5 years. Again, they stay well topped up - 4-step charger when on berth, Adverc smart charger when motoring and Duogen wind/water turbine when sailing or anchored.
 
We have 3 x 170 AH Delphi Maintenance free batteries (now made by someone else I think) for the domestic and one isolated 110 AH Delphi for the engine. Before this I used Standard lead acid batteries that I topped up every now ant then. These were at lest 5 years old when I replaced them and were probably still usable.

I upgraded all the charging systems and engine alternators so replaced the batteries at the same time to have a consistent starting point.

We now have a charge booster on the main alternator, a dedicated alternator for the engine battery, a 3 stage battery charger for shore power, an AmpAir Pacific 100 wind generator and a battery monitoring system to keep track of charge.

The boat is used extensively 12 months of the year running fridges, heater and the usual lights plus a laptop and TV sometimes. We try and keep the discharge to less than 25% (ie 75% charges) but sometimes take them down to 65% (ish) if we forget or are unable to charge for a period.

I mix the use between cruising or in a marina sailing. The engine battery is 4 years old and is fine. I am just now starting to notice a loss in performance of the domestic bank but not enough to worry me or make me think they need replacing.

On my last boat I used to get about 3 years from the batteries before I had to replace them. I regularly discarded them to almost flat so 3 years life was not too bad IMO.

I think battery life depends on your charging/discharging routines. If you put lots of load on them and pull the AMPs quickly they will not last as long as if you look after then carefully and fuss about charging.

I consider the batteries to be an expensive consumable that need some maintenance but will regularly need to be replaced.

/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
<<Interestingly they are maintenance free, which we had many doubts about initially, but those doubts have long disappeared. I have yet to visit the boat (now laid up ashore for the winter) and find the voltage showing less than 12.6 - 12.7v.>.

I've used the Delphi lead/calcium sealed batteries and found they have certain drawbacks. The first is they need a longer charge period than comparable flooded batteries and second, they're extremely reluctant to give up their amps. The last one I had did 7 years, before I changed it.

Having worked with electric fork-lifts, I know that no sealed battery can be charged or discharged at the rate of a flooded battery. However if you work batteries hard, you need to top them up regularly, with distilled water. Most FLTs did about 5-7 years on their batteries, whether they were flat or tubular plate and those batteries were working x5/x10 the rate of any marine batteries.
 
Not with a pair of solar panels permanently connected it aint.
To be fair, if I disconnected these and let the batteries sit idle they would probably drop back a bit....
 
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Having worked with electric fork-lifts, I know that no sealed battery can be charged or discharged at the rate of a flooded battery.

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You might be wrong on this one. Check out LIFELINE AGMs. Because of their construction they charge 30% faster than other batteries and they can take as much current as you can throw at them.
 
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