Trojan Batteries?

[Plevier]

However, he talked about working in the 50%-85% range and doing a long monthly equalise.

I can only manage a short eq. but better than nothing. Toubador, any comment on relative importance of eq. cycle and min. duration? It's always going to be a problem to do it properly when living on board. I don't eq. monthly though, just 1-2 times a year if SG in cells still vary by more than 0.03 after a few days charging in a marina.

I read it to mean the batteries might regularly spend a month in the 50-85% state of charge range and then get an eq charge and that the OP thought the T-105s would be happy with this because they are deep cycle batteries. I don't think they would. I think any L/A battery subject to this regime would deteriorate and capacity would slide down through permanent sulphation. The T-105s might even suffer worse from this than typical "leisure" batteries because of the effects of the high antimony content (the leisures will be low antimony or calcium).

However I may have misunderstood the OP.

sailinglegend may well pop up in a minute to say that Lifelines would live with it, and indeed they might well tolerate it better than anything else, but at a v high price and they would need a high voltage equalisation (higher than T-105s) probably 3 monthly.

There's no magic bullet I'm afraid. Cycling and long term standby requirements are a bit different. I'm in no doubt the T-105s will have excellent cycle life treated as intended, but that means full recharge straight after discharge, it doesn't mean they will tolerate abuse well.

Mistroma - it sounds as though you're managing to give yours an acceptable regime or your sg's would go more out of step. For eq time and voltage try to follow the battery manufacturers instructions! (Even if they conflict with the charger manufacturers instructions - some of them have funny ideas!!)

Just to make it clear, I'm not connected with Trojan or Lifeline and haven't handled their products, but the principles apply across all manufacturers. Most batteries of a given type differ only in detail.

 

[Mistroma]

Troubador, you are probably correct about OP mainly sticking at 85% as he said he didn't have shorepower. Equalisation charge means he intends to be at 100% monthly. Most information I've seen indicated that a 100% charge every month was just about OK with flooded batteries. However, I've seen little actual evidence or studies to prove it.

I've been trying to get mine to 100% whenever possible when on the boat as I'm slightly paranoid about battery maintenance. That means 85% most days but 100% every 12-14 days. Difficult to get a real 100% of course, I now tend to anchor off and enter a marina about 10:00 and stay 1-2 days leaving about 14:00 (so get 28 - 52 hours on shorepower).

My reasoning wrt T105s was that decent AGMs were very expensive and many decent "leisure" batteries seemed not that much cheaper than T105s. So I went for a compromise by getting T105s and trying to get to 100% as often as possible. BTW Trojan say 15.5V for eq. but didn't indicate approx. cycle length.

Are you saying that OP might be better with really cheap batteries and just accept a very short lifespan?

Just had another thought. If T105s are designed to be discharged and charged daily when used in floor polishers then they aren't left for days to get back to 100% charge. I assume that they are therefore cycled between 50% and say 90%-95%. Is that correct? If so, then my regime might not be quite as bad as it seems.

 

[Richard10002]

To answer a few points raised:

I can't change the fact that I'm well and truly off grid - no chance of access to mains shore power on anything like a regular basis.

I actually have an 80A charger and a 25 A charger and, for the brief periods when I've run them together, my Honda Eu20i will happily output 100A.... Or that's what my NASA BM-2 monitor tells me - so no problems with the genny.

When charging, the batteries don't accept 80A for a long time, and the genny mostly runs at much slower than full speed, so I'm not unduly concerned about fuel useage. As mentioned, equalisation is at high volts, but not many Amps, so slow speed.

When my bank is accepting less than about 2A, I have assumed that it was as good as full, so started an equalisation. My charger has an equalisation setting of 15.6V for 4 hours, and I've reset it on a few of the occasions I've tried an equalisation, to give the bank about 6-8 hours of equalisation. The batteries are bubbling away during equalisation, and all looks like it should..... Except my attempts have failed to blow off the sulphate on and increase the capacity.

So I think I understand equalising, and will be able to do it fine.

I've trawled the Trojan site to see if they say that you must do all you can to charge the batteries to 100% after each use:

1) there are some discussions about golf cart batteries where they suggest a charge of 110% of whatever has been used, so that the batteries are in the gassing phase for 10% of the charging time.

2) there is one slide which says that "some experts say that it is good for batteries to be used between 50% and 85% SOC", and Trojan don't suggest that this is very wrong. They also don't suggest that it is correct, although I wonder why they mention it if it isn't an appropriate use.

3) They do say that much information in bars, yacht clubs and on Internet forums may be mythical

I may send them an email to see if they have definitive advice on cycling between 50% and 85% with a monthly full charge and equalisation.

I won't be doing anything with my £500 until I'm reasonably sure it is not better to buy 3 cheap batteries for £200, and keep replacing them as they fail. If they last a year each time, it's only £4 per week!

When on board, I can usually run the genny for an hour in the morning, and 2 hours in the evening, (6pm to 8pm). I can also run it for several more hours on at least one day a week, so might be able to get close to 100% once a week. It just seems that to get from 85% to 100% takes forever, whereas to get from 50% to 85% is much faster.

If it doesn't make sense to cycle a deep cycle battery between 50% and 85%, then I'm off back to the drawing board...

What do sailors who spend most of their time off grid, (on the oceans, or the canals), do to solve this issue?

Thanks to all for the input - all very helpful, and thought provoking.

 

[prv]

What's much harder to work out is how such a simple piece of arithmetic could generate so much angst.

Possibly it's the fact that these small gennies have an auxiliary 12v DC output that offers much less power than the main AC supply. Someone who didn't realise that, and thought that the power was the same whether obtained at 12v or 240v, might then get confused.

Pete

 

[prv]

I may send them an email to see if they have definitive advice on cycling between 50% and 85% with a monthly full charge and equalisation.

Please do post the result here, if you do. I'm sticking with the new boat's bog-standard leisure batteries this year (other priorities to fix first) but will be replacing them with decent kit next winter and want to figure out the best option. It sounds like I'll be buying about the same amount of battery as you, and while I have a home pontoon berth, there is no power available there and I prefer anchorages and moorings to marinas when I travel elsewhere. So I'd be interested in what you find out.

Pete

 

[macd]

Possibly it's the fact that these small gennies have an auxiliary 12v DC output that offers much less power than the main AC supply. Someone who didn't realise that, and thought that the power was the same whether obtained at 12v or 240v, might then get confused.

Possibly so, and a kindly interpretation. But perhaps the 'confused' might be better advised not to peddle their confusion as fact.

 

[Plevier]

Troubador, you are probably correct about OP mainly sticking at 85% as he said he didn't have shorepower. Equalisation charge means he intends to be at 100% monthly. Most information I've seen indicated that a 100% charge every month was just about OK with flooded batteries. However, I've seen little actual evidence or studies to prove it.

### No black/white answer. Depends on environment in between.

I've been trying to get mine to 100% whenever possible when on the boat as I'm slightly paranoid about battery maintenance. That means 85% most days but 100% every 12-14 days. Difficult to get a real 100% of course, I now tend to anchor off and enter a marina about 10:00 and stay 1-2 days leaving about 14:00 (so get 28 - 52 hours on shorepower).

My reasoning wrt T105s was that decent AGMs were very expensive and many decent "leisure" batteries seemed not that much cheaper than T105s. So I went for a compromise by getting T105s and trying to get to 100% as often as possible.

### I think your batteries should feel well loved and appreciated - unlike many!

BTW Trojan say 15.5V for eq. but didn't indicate approx. cycle length.

### No black/white answer. Depends on environment in between. Look for current and sg to stabilise. 5 hrs or so is often seen as reasonable. Don't forget overdoing it will promote plate corrosion/erosion.

Are you saying that OP might be better with really cheap batteries and just accept a very short lifespan?

### No I'm not. That is a conceivable outcome at the extreme of the abuse scale but I could certainly not predict it. Will only know after the event! All I'm saying is T-105s should give impressive life used correctly but that is not a license to abuse them. It's (almost) like buying a top quality engine on the basis it should last longer without oil than a cheaper one will!!

Just had another thought. If T105s are designed to be discharged and charged daily when used in floor polishers then they aren't left for days to get back to 100% charge. I assume that they are therefore cycled between 50% and say 90%-95%. Is that correct? If so, then my regime might not be quite as bad as it seems.

### It's like a fork lift or golf buggy or airport shuttle; use it for the shift (or until flat, however defined) then plug it back in the charging system, which will be multi stage. If used 7 days a week it may never be 100%. If used 5 days a week it'll get 100% weekly. (BTW golf buggy in the context of these batteries means the substantial things based at courses, not the sort of trolley you put in the car boot, I suspect there is a UK/US difference of terminology here for a lot of people who refer to golf cart batteries!)

.

 

[ianj99]

One thing not mentioned is the number of cycles. How many charge/discharge cycles do you expect to do using Trojans v cheap batteries? I.e. if both are rated at 500cycles,and the Trojans cost 3 times the price, they'd need to last 3 times longer before reaching 500cycles to justify the extra cost.

This also shows that it is worth charging to 100% and discharging to 50% since it means fewer cycles and longer battery life than going from 85 to 50%...

 

[Mistroma]

One thing not mentioned is the number of cycles. How many charge/discharge cycles do you expect to do using Trojans v cheap batteries? I.e. if both are rated at 500cycles,and the Trojans cost 3 times the price, they'd need to last 3 times longer before reaching 500cycles to justify the extra cost.

This also shows that it is worth charging to 100% and discharging to 50% since it means fewer cycles and longer battery life than going from 85 to 50%...

See post #5 for graph showing lifecycles for different Trojan batteries. I do think that they look optimistic but at least Trojan publish the information. I was making exactly the point you make as T105s were shown as having approx 2x charge cycles for almost all discharge states.

Always starting from 100% will increase lifespan, as already mentioned by Troubador. However, there are good reasons for only charging to 85% rather than 100% if not on shorepower a lot. It's more a matter of what can be achieved in use versus an ideal situation.

 

[Plevier]

To answer a few points raised:

I can't change the fact that I'm well and truly off grid - no chance of access to mains shore power on anything like a regular basis.
### It's a difficult situation and tough for any battery.

When my bank is accepting less than about 2A, I have assumed that it was as good as full, so started an equalisation.
### Real fully charged float current at say 13.8V can range from about 0.1% (i.e. 0.1A per 100Ah nominal capacity) for a lead calcium AGM through maybe .25-.5% for typical calcium or low antimony wet batteries to around 1% for high antimony wets. I think in an earlier thread Mistroma reported that Trojan say 1-3% for the T-105, the 3% would be at end of life, it rises in that sort of construction because of antimony migration and spot deposition increasing gassing.

My charger has an equalisation setting of 15.6V for 4 hours, and I've reset it on a few of the occasions I've tried an equalisation, to give the bank about 6-8 hours of equalisation. The batteries are bubbling away during equalisation, and all looks like it should..... Except my attempts have failed to blow off the sulphate on and increase the capacity.
### Not enough info to comment other than say sulphation is not the only cause of failure. Cheap thin plate batteries can rapidly lose poorly anchored active material off the pos plates with cycling (because of differential expansion in the cycle between the lead grid and the paste as it goes from lead peroxide to lead sulphate and back) or vigorous charging (because of corrosion/erosion at the interface). 15.6V is pretty aggressive for a thin plate battery, I would hesitate to do that to mine regularly. You don't have to equalise after every charge.

I've trawled the Trojan site to see if they say that you must do all you can to charge the batteries to 100% after each use:
### believe me that is the best for any battery. In a normal application, a T-105 is likely to be plugged into an intelligent charger whenever not in use. They are designed for industrial machines, not yachtsmen!

1) there are some discussions about golf cart batteries where they suggest a charge of 110% of whatever has been used, so that the batteries are in the gassing phase for 10% of the charging time.
### Simplistic but not far off for reasonable depth of discharge. Depends on depth of discharge, and a battery doesn't suddenly enter a gassing phase when it's 100% charged, it's gradual crossover. You'll get internal variations in the batteries, between cells, between plates, between areas on plates....

2) there is one slide which says that "some experts say that it is good for batteries to be used between 50% and 85% SOC",
### I can only disagree violently. I think that must be out of context. Maybe someone said it was the minimum acceptable regime for any hope of reasonable life, as opposed to running below 50%! A lot of lightly used cars may run like that, or certainly they did in the days of dynamos rather than high output alternators.

3) They do say that much information in bars, yacht clubs and on Internet forums may be mythical
### Absolutely!! From some charger manufacturers too

I may send them an email to see if they have definitive advice on cycling between 50% and 85% with a monthly full charge and equalisation.
### That would be really interesting if they gave a meaningful reply. You'll have to spell the conditions out though - how long at 85%, how long at 50%, charging voltages, frequency of cycling etc.

I won't be doing anything with my £500 until I'm reasonably sure it is not better to buy 3 cheap batteries for £200, and keep replacing them as they fail. If they last a year each time, it's only £4 per week!
### Only you can decide! I'm not sure of the price balance.

When on board, I can usually run the genny for an hour in the morning, and 2 hours in the evening, (6pm to 8pm). I can also run it for several more hours on at least one day a week, so might be able to get close to 100% once a week. It just seems that to get from 85% to 100% takes forever, whereas to get from 50% to 85% is much faster.
### That is the heart of the problem. From 50-85% almost all the current going in is charging the plates i.e. charge efficiency nearly 100%. Above 85% the current will be a lot lower and more and more of it goes as losses, so charge efficiency is maybe 80% at 85% state of charge, and reducing. When floating at 100% state of charge, the efficiency of charging is 0%. So reaching 100% is an asymptotic process that takes forever!!

.

My personal belief is that there are some carp batteries around and very often you get what you pay for.
I'm about to buy one or two leisure type batteries for my weekend use boat as the original 9 year old Tudors have snuffed it. I will not be looking at the cheapest funny brands whose origin I don't know. I will be looking for decent prices on Varta, Exide etc., or Numax seem to do pretty well. I cannot justify Trojans etc for my use.
I can buy own brand Korean ones from a local wholesale importer, cash no VAT, for a lot less, but it's false economy.
Many will disagree and say get the cheapest you can, they are all the same.

 

[Mistroma]

Possibly it's the fact that these small gennies have an auxiliary 12v DC output that offers much less power than the main AC supply. Someone who didn't realise that, and thought that the power was the same whether obtained at 12v or 240v, might then get confused.

Pete

I don't think that was a point of confusion, at least not for long. I thought it might be the case and so clarified max. current at 230VAC, 12DC and even 120VAC (in case someone thought I had US kit).

Not certain where you are getting 12A from as I didn't mention the model of Honda generator.

It's a 20Eui rated at ~1.6kVa (230V model).
AC(230) 7A
DC(12V unregulated) 8A

Perhaps you thought it was a 120V model where output is 13.3A
.
.

yes but if the genny output is 7A @240v then its only putting 7A into the charger & you will never ever see 80A from that charger. you might be getting say 10>12 Ah @ 12v

So it was quite clear that we were discussing a genny providing a 240VAC supply for an 80A mains charger. However, it did seem to be resolved soon afterwards when calculations showed that you could produce 80A @ 12V using a small 240V generator and a mains charger.

 

[ianj99]

See post #5 for graph showing lifecycles for different Trojan batteries. I do think that they look optimistic but at least Trojan publish the information. I was making exactly the point you make as T105s were shown as having approx 2x charge cycles for almost all discharge states.

Always starting from 100% will increas lifespan, as already mentioned by Troubador. However, there are good reasons for only charging to 85% rather than 100% if not on shorepower a lot. It's more a matter of what can be achieved in use versus an ideal situation.

Yes, so in this case, where no shorepower, is it not more sensible / cost effective for the OP to stick to cheap batteries and just replace when necessary even if its once a year as was suggested earlier?

 

[Plevier]

Yes, so in this case, where no shorepower, is it not more sensible / cost effective for the OP to stick to cheap batteries and just replace when necessary even if its once a year as was suggested earlier?

That is certainly a possible outcome but is your crystal ball clear enough to be sure!

 

[ianj99]

That is certainly a possible outcome but is your crystal ball clear enough to be sure!

If my crystal balls worked I'd be able to afford the Trojans!
I'd risk it rather than spend £500 on Trojan's. Cheaper batteries and a portable solar panel to try and get them closer to 100% is probably the way I'd go.

 

[sailinglegend420]

......I actually have an 80A charger and a 25 A charger and, for the brief periods when I've run them together, my Honda Eu20i will happily output 100A.... Or that's what my NASA BM-2 monitor tells me - so no problems with the genny.

I'm glad you confirmed that, so this thread isn't spoilt anymore by silly comments about amps and watts.

....When charging, the batteries don't accept 80A for a long time, and the genny mostly runs at much slower than full speed,...

You must get the batteries back to 100% BEFORE you start equalization otherwise you may be putting far too many amps into them. My Lifeline AGMs take 8 hours at 15.5 volts. They have a 99.9% gas recombination so I only get a very small bubble of gas coming from the valves. There's no strong smell of acid as you get with flooded LA batteries during EQ. Because they are sealed I only equalize about twice a year - after 8 years of use.

You must remember that equalizing is designed to remove sulfation that has just happened since the last full charge. It will not removed hardened sulfation accumulated over the year. This is as I understand it - in simple terms - if you only charge to 95% and don't equalize then you get 5% sulfation. Next time you only charge to 95% and don't equalize then you now have about 10% sulfation. Next time its 15% sulfation....and so it gets worse. This may be too simplistic a view as some of the sulfation will be probably removed on each charge?

....When my bank is accepting less than about 2A, I have assumed that it was as good as full, so started an equalisation.

This is correct, BUT the charging voltage must still be at the absorption voltage of about 14.4 volts, not a float voltage of 13.6 or worse 13.2 volts as my Lifelines demand! You will never normally see 14.4.volts at 2 amps because the charger will have dropped to a float voltage, so you have to trick the charger back into BOOST, when you may well see the current rise to above 10 amps - indicating the batteries are not 100% charged. Wait till this falls to 0.5% of battery capacity.

I hope you have battery temperature sensors to compensate for any rise in temperature during equalization?

....I've trawled the Trojan site to see if they say that you must do all you can to charge the batteries to 100% after each use:

That's what all battery manufacturers say, even Lifeline.

.... 1) there are some discussions about golf cart batteries where they suggest a charge of 110% of whatever has been used, so that the batteries are in the gassing phase for 10% of the charging time.

Batteries are at the gassing stage for maybe 500% of the time - maybe what you means is they need 110% put in for a 100% gain in Ah. old LA batteries may need as much as 125% put in, AGMs may need only 102% which is one of the reasons why they charge much faster.

....2) there is one slide which says that "some experts say that it is good for batteries to be used between 50% and 85% SOC", and Trojan don't suggest that this is very wrong.

As Troubadour says they may well not get back to 100% every night - can take 24 hours on shorepower to do that, which is why a monthly 100% charge and equalize is recommended.

....3) They do say that much information in bars, yacht clubs and on Internet forums may be mythical

No comment - actually I will comment! See how many postings they have had before you judge their postings here. Someone with over 42,000 post is either extremely knowledgeable, or specialises in cryptic, unhelpful responses, even if they are correct. 12 posts every day for the last 10 years is fine for the likes of the Lounge or Scuttlebutt, but on more serious forums like PBO and Liveaboard unhelpful comments just spoil a thread. Nuff said!

....I won't be doing anything with my £500 until I'm reasonably sfure it is not better to buy 3 cheap batteries for £200, and keep replacing them as they fail. If they last a year each time, it's only £4 per week!

I would suggest that your battery capacity is far too low if you have to run the genny for three hours every day. You say you don't think you use 100Ah/day. If you have a battery monitor you should know exactly how many Ah you are using every 24 hrs and size accordingly for charging every other day.

....What do sailors who spend most of their time off grid, (on the oceans, or the canals), do to solve this issue?

Get as many solar panels as they can. You should be able to fit enough on your narrow boat to minimise the problem.

 

[rustybarge]

<<Sailinglegend420 :My Lifeline AGMs take 8 hours at 15.5 volts.>>

Can you fast charge gel batteries?
How high a charge will they take?

 

[sailinglegend420]

Can you fast charge gel batteries?
How high a charge will they take?

No you can't - and Lifeline AGMs are the only AGMs that recommend equalization.

One note - do not confuse equalization programmes you get on some solar controllers - they maybe only add only 0.2v volts to the absorption voltage. Check out Morningstar controllers who have a setting to equalize Gels for an hour. Maybe e-mail them.

 

[sailorman]

http://www.sterling-power.com/images/downloads/advancedcharging.pdf

 

[sailinglegend420]

http://www.sterling-power.com/images/downloads/advancedcharging.pdf

This link is exactly what Richard10002 was asking in his post:

3) They do say that much information in bars, yacht clubs and on Internet forums may be mythical


Mt Sterling is a law unto himself - charging a 100Ah battery at 160 amps to claim a 457% improvement with his system is just nonsense. You have to draw your own conclusions from everything he publishes. He says AGMs, or any sealed battery, shouldn't be on boats - Nigel Calder says exactly the opposite, although he is now trying the Odyssey TPPLs, and having some problems.

 

[Plevier]

<<Sailinglegend420 :My Lifeline AGMs take 8 hours at 15.5 volts.>>

Can you fast charge gel batteries?
How high a charge will they take?

Are you under the common misapprehension that gel and AGM are the same?
They are very different in construction and behaviour.
You cannot fast charge gel.
You can fast charge (most) AGM but at lower voltage than you would use to fast charge flooded cells.