New Batteries

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Caladh

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I will be replacing my two house batteries soon and have been recommended
Lucas XV Supreme 110a/h - has anyone got any good or bad experiences
with them ? I appreciate that as "leisure" batteries go I would only be expecting
3 years use (6 months p/a live aboard). However the price seems reasonable and
is similar to that which I paid 3 years ago !!
 
Where is the boat? In the UK, I'll be buying Trojan T105 next time I need batteries.

Might need to rejig the compartment a bit, due to slightly different dimensions.
 
I just copied my marina neighbour who had done all the research because he was fitting 10 x 180ah batteries prior to a long multi-year mobo cruise. He chose Varta.

The worst thing you could do is walk into a chandlers and buy an obscure pro marine brand, this will be some generic no-name plastic box with a 2 penny sticky label. Worst thing I ever did was fit a marine battery from "Solent Leisure", even when new my amp hour counter demonstrated its capacity fell way short of its AH rating.

Edit: Make sure the terminals are in the same relative position.
 
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Lucas is just another brand name, licensed to Manbat who also have the Numax brand. AFAIK Lucas and Numax differ only in the labels. No idea who makes them for Manbat.
It's very difficult these days to know who makes what label. "Leisure" batteries are just a commodity product now I think.
I recently went through all this and in the end bought Alphaline from Batt Mega because i was able to find out the true manufacturers name, they aren't afraid to have it known. Could have got Xplorer, Enduroline, Numax etc etc. Interesting to note that Batt Mega call the model I bought a deep cycle leisure battery but the Korean manufacturer AtlasBX calls it a starter battery capable of occasional cycling! I think that's typical of UK market.
Best guide is weight - but they all seem to weigh the same, even the Varta.
These comments don't apply to things like Trojan, just to the market level you are looking at.
As a live aboard, it might pay you to go up in quality. I'm just a weekender and the short life cheapos make sense.
 
I have T105s as a full time liveaboard, rarely plugged in. If you look after them a little bit, they will look after you a lot, although mine took 6 months to come up to proper capacity (actually, they now exceed their stickers - considerably.) I discharged my bank by approx 500 Ah (680 Ah capacity @ C20) according to a regularly "calibrated" Victron BMV 600. With a 3A load, my voltage reading was 12.08V. I did some maths to double check the BMV readout because I was amazed but it rang true.

Top them up with an auto fill bottle, don't over fill them, equalise them and you can get away with abandoning them for a very long weekend and still turn the lights on and grab a cold beer from the fridge....

BUT...if your battery access is poor and you are not likely to maintain them....go to your local battery wholesaler and get their cheap own brand 110 leisures...I pay £65 each or thereabouts, although that is "trade," it is not a pallet price and you should get close. The same ones at the chandlers nearby are £95.
 
Plevier said:
Lucas is just another brand name, licensed to Manbat who also have the Numax brand. AFAIK Lucas and Numax differ only in the labels. No idea who makes them for Manbat.
It's very difficult these days to know who makes what label. "Leisure" batteries are just a commodity product now I think.
I recently went through all this and in the end bought Alphaline from Batt Mega because i was able to find out the true manufacturers name, they aren't afraid to have it known. Could have got Xplorer, Enduroline, Numax etc etc. Interesting to note that Batt Mega call the model I bought a deep cycle leisure battery but the Korean manufacturer AtlasBX calls it a starter battery capable of occasional cycling! I think that's typical of UK market.
Best guide is weight - but they all seem to weigh the same, even the Varta.
These comments don't apply to things like Trojan, just to the market level you are looking at.
As a live aboard, it might pay you to go up in quality. I'm just a weekender and the short life cheapos make sense.
Click to expand...

Simon - I would never touch Numax ever again. From new they were slow to charge and ended up a year later severely overheating and had to be thrown overboard. The others I took into a battery shop in Aegina and he showed me that the terminal posts had play in them - thus badly made.

The fact that they were slow to charge and appeared not to hold their charge did not become apparent till I had installed the E-Nex batteries (made in Korea). There was a massive difference in Amps going in, and they always seem very well charged by the morning (4 years later) whereas the Numax ones were always so well down, I could not work out where the juice was going. Turned out that they were just **** batteries.
 
LadyInBed said:
http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/leisure-batteries/

I've found the 125 and 135ah Xplorer range from alpha batteries very good, plus a 4 yr warranty.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the info about Alfa-Batteries. About 30 years ago I sold batteries (proper ones like Oldham, Crompton etc, Although I also sold Lucas and Exide)
The boat I am improving has 2 Numax 110amp batteries which according to the previous owners invoice he bought new 3 years ago. But looking at the standard of workmanship they also did for him I have my doubts as to whether the batteries were actually brand new when they fitted them.
I can buy new 110 amp batteries for around £70.00 but this seems remarkably cheap, and 110 amp dosent seem enough when you have a 3 litre diesel with glow plugs which takes far more juice than a modern small diesel. I will certainly replace these two with something bigger. Perhaps the 135amp listed by Alpha.
Mind you I might get a battery from a tractor dealer as many tractors sit for months doing nothing (Nov - March) and are expected to start immediately. Perhaps similar to Leisure Batteries"
Of course 30 years ago when I sold Batteries nobody had heard of Leisure Batteries, perhaps its because we did not have any.
 
I have the 125 a/h Xplorer from Alpha Batteries as my single domestic battery. It's now done 3 years and seems to be holding up significantly better than any of the other brands I've used in the past.
 
Plevier said:
Lucas is just another brand name, licensed to Manbat who also have the Numax brand. AFAIK Lucas and Numax differ only in the labels. No idea who makes them for Manbat.
It's very difficult these days to know who makes what label. "Leisure" batteries are just a commodity product now I think.
I recently went through all this and in the end bought Alphaline from Batt Mega because i was able to find out the true manufacturers name, they aren't afraid to have it known. Could have got Xplorer, Enduroline, Numax etc etc. Interesting to note that Batt Mega call the model I bought a deep cycle leisure battery but the Korean manufacturer AtlasBX calls it a starter battery capable of occasional cycling! I think that's typical of UK market.


Best guide is weight - but they all seem to weigh the same, even the Varta.
These comments don't apply to things like Trojan, just to the market level you are looking at.
As a live aboard, it might pay you to go up in quality. I'm just a weekender and the short life cheapos make sense.
Click to expand...

Apparently, in the US, nearly all the own-name battery brands are made by Johnson Controls.

When I was tossing up between the Bosch "Super Silver" and their L type batteries, the former weighed 1.8 kg more than the €20 cheaper ones. I'd dearly love to find open-cell batteries to fit my aft battery boxes, but even in wholesalers, can only find sealed ones which have about 50% of the lifespan of open ones. The AC Delco Freedom (now replaced by the Voyager) had lasted 47 months (6/12 liveaboard).
The last open cell battery (for the aft box) was bought in Ajaccio in 2002 and lasted until 2008.
 
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charles_reed said:
Apparently, in the US, nearly all the own-name battery brands are made by Johnson Controls.

When I was tossing up between the Bosch "Super Silver" and their L type batteries, the former weighed 1.8 kg more than the €20 cheaper ones. I'd dearly love to find open-cell batteries to fit my aft battery boxes, but even in wholesalers, can only find sealed ones which have about 50% of the lifespan of open ones. The AC Delco Freedom (now replaced by the Voyager) had lasted 47 months (6/12 liveaboard).
The last open cell battery (for the aft box) was bought in Ajaccio in 2002 and lasted until 2008.
Click to expand...

Johnson claim to make 135 million automotive batteries a year. That's huge! For comparison the quite substantial UK group I used to work for made about 5 million a year under various names in 3 factories. However it's now gone (pollution controls and costs) and the names pop up now and then on badged imports.
However apart from Optima and Varta I don't think Johnson have a lot of penetration of European markets. Most own labels in the UK are from Korea or China. However I understand Johnson (Varta) produce the Halfords ones (that doesn't necessarily mean they are to the same specification).
Bosch used to be and AFAIK still are Varta. Basically Varta name for retail, Bosch for OEM, but varies between countries.
Remember rights to a name can be with different people in different countries! Exide is particularly difficult to untangle.

There is no intrinsic reason why a "sealed maintenance free" flooded battery should last any less time than an "open cell" one unless you are charging so vigorously you run out of water and can't find a way to top up by removing a label or a clipped in panel. It must just result from general cheapening and lightening.
 
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