Truck batteries for boats

TSailors

TSailors

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I just talked to a fellow boat owner and he swears by truck batteries.
"Much cheaper than Gel, and they last for years and years" he said.
They were massive things btw - he had some there and I was impressed.
They looked twice as long as regular batteries.
 
Such sweeping statements are really not helpful. There are no such things as "truck" batteries - but trucks use particular types of batteries, typically heavy duty high output batteries that are suited to their operating cycle. They are not particularly suited to a typical yacht service battery which is required to cope with a long series of regular heavy discharges and hopefully good recharges. They are simply a store of energy to meet demand. A start battery, which is essentially what are used in trucks are required to give high current of short periods to start the engine. The alternator recharges very quickly and then the battery essentially does nothing until the next time the engine needs starting. "life" is a function of how many times and how deeply you discharge and recharge the battery. Typically a cheap lead acid battery will last for 3-500cycles as a service battery in a boat. Gel a bit longer and good AGMs in the region of 800-1000.

There is no one simple battery set up that suits al needs. a weekend sailor who has access to shorepower and rarely stays at anchor for more than a day or 2 has very different requirements from a full time liveaboard. While it is fairly easy to cope with the weekend demands on a boat your size it is a challenge to do the same if you want to stay "off grid" for longer periods for 2 reasons, First the difficulty of physically fitting enough storage capacity and second having a means of recharging to cope with your daily usage. The first is less of s problem now if you use lithium batteries, but retrofitting these to an old boat is in itself a challenge as it means a different approach to charging. Charging means solar and small boats like yours and mine really do not have the space to fit sufficient solar to support heavy usage.

If you are going to revise your electrical systems you need to start from scratch and determine your anticipated pattern and level of consumption, then how you will generate this energy. The size of the bank sort of falls out of this assessment. The type of battery you fit depends on such things as space available and how long you want them to last, that is how many cycles. Ignoring lithium, for lead acid there is a very strong correlation between cost and life. So broadly speaking cheap start batteries as used in trucks when used in boats will have a short life (although low cost and frequent replacement may be cheaper !)

Hope this helps
 
Depends on the 'Truck Battery' ....

If they are the type designed to start the big diesel engine as well as power the hydraulic tail lift .. then they are an excellent battery for us ...

Sorry Tranona - but your long post ignores a serious factor in a 'trucks battery' life.

The starting factor - because of the large engines - is usually based on 24V ... and is why most trucks carry a twin battery setup. The hydraulics and some extras can be tapped of one battery - but quite often the gear is 24v as well ...

'Truck batterys' are usually sold at cost vs AH size .... and can be cheaper than most other batterys.
 
Truck batteries are designed for the vehicle lights to be left on for long periods of time and the operation of the loading tail lift as well as the high discharge starting.
Years ago I got hold of some motorway gritter batteries that were huge. The cycle time was incredible using halogen spots lamps for lighting.
Weight would be a big problem though.
 
Refueler said:
Depends on the 'Truck Battery' ....

If they are the type designed to start the big diesel engine as well as power the hydraulic tail lift .. then they are an excellent battery for us ...

Sorry Tranona - but your long post ignores a serious factor in a 'trucks battery' life.

The starting factor - because of the large engines - is usually based on 24V ... and is why most trucks carry a twin battery setup. The hydraulics and some extras can be tapped of one battery - but quite often the gear is 24v as well ...

'Truck batterys' are usually sold at cost vs AH size .... and can be cheaper than most other batterys.
Click to expand...
I have 3 of these, and if I remember correctly you posted positively about them some time ago
Promotive AGM for heavy duty | VARTA Automotive Batteries
 
Refueler said:
Depends on the 'Truck Battery' ....

If they are the type designed to start the big diesel engine as well as power the hydraulic tail lift .. then they are an excellent battery for us ...

Sorry Tranona - but your long post ignores a serious factor in a 'trucks battery' life.

The starting factor - because of the large engines - is usually based on 24V ... and is why most trucks carry a twin battery setup. The hydraulics and some extras can be tapped of one battery - but quite often the gear is 24v as well ...

'Truck batterys' are usually sold at cost vs AH size .... and can be cheaper than most other batterys.
Click to expand...
But for house banks you don't need thee power to start a big truck diesel. If they are of the type like the Vartas Irish Rover has they are the automotive equivalent of the marine "leisure" battery - and how many people would want to fit a 210ah battery into a 31' or indeed any smallish cruising boat?

My objection is to the sweeping statement about a particular type of battery that is not aimed at the specific application being "better" than one that is. Of course there are situations where there is crossover - small car batteries are good for start batteries on small yachts, Stop/start AGMs make good lower cost house batteries in the 100-120ah range.

The principle remains, though, determine the duty cycle and choose a battery that is best for that.
 
Tranona said:
But for house banks you don't need thee power to start a big truck diesel. If they are of the type like the Vartas Irish Rover has they are the automotive equivalent of the marine "leisure" battery - and how many people would want to fit a 210ah battery into a 31' or indeed any smallish cruising boat?

My objection is to the sweeping statement about a particular type of battery that is not aimed at the specific application being "better" than one that is. Of course there are situations where there is crossover - small car batteries are good for start batteries on small yachts, Stop/start AGMs make good lower cost house batteries in the 100-120ah range.

The principle remains, though, determine the duty cycle and choose a battery that is best for that.
Click to expand...

Quote OP post :

"I just talked to a fellow boat owner and he swears by truck batteries.
"Much cheaper than Gel, and they last for years and years" he said.
They were massive things btw - he had some there and I was impressed.
They looked twice as long as regular batteries."

I agree that the last sentence indicates a large capacity battery ... but the whole post is not about battery SIZE ... but the suitability of batterys aimed at trucks. THAT is also the premis of my reply ..

Again I will repeat that if the batterys in question are those designed to provide not only start engine but also hydraulic system capability ... they are an excellent all round battery.
I don't think many people appear to realise what truck batterys have to contend with ... having owned a number of trucks with tail-lifts and various gear installed - I can say that experience is worth a lot here.
 
Lithium. This probably replaces 400 Ah of lead acid, for less money, half the size, and 3x less weight. It's time. I was a lead acid traditionalist for a long time, but I finally felt that time had passed and the price point made sense. And my lead failed, requiring replacement. So far, so good.

WattCycle 280 Ah
 
TSailors said:
I just talked to a fellow boat owner and he swears by truck batteries.
"Much cheaper than Gel, and they last for years and years" he said.
They were massive things btw - he had some there and I was impressed.
They looked twice as long as regular batteries.
Click to expand...
How do these batteries know they are for trucks? They are just batteries that were used in trucks.

Can you give us the full specification and then we could make a comparison between these truck batteries and normal ones.

I did read a post on here about the marketing 'bovine excreta' for 'batteries for solar power', where all the electrons arrived at the terminals with a sun tan.
 
Refueler said:
Quote OP post :

"I just talked to a fellow boat owner and he swears by truck batteries.
"Much cheaper than Gel, and they last for years and years" he said.
They were massive things btw - he had some there and I was impressed.
They looked twice as long as regular batteries."

I agree that the last sentence indicates a large capacity battery ... but the whole post is not about battery SIZE ... but the suitability of batterys aimed at trucks. THAT is also the premis of my reply ..

Again I will repeat that if the batterys in question are those designed to provide not only start engine but also hydraulic system capability ... they are an excellent all round battery.
I don't think many people appear to realise what truck batterys have to contend with ... having owned a number of trucks with tail-lifts and various gear installed - I can say that experience is worth a lot here.
Click to expand...
But those properties are available on batteries aimed at the marine market which are made in capacity sizes more suited to the application.. No reason why "ordinary" Gel should not last as long in terms of cycles as those made in a configuration to suit trucks. What the OPs mate is suggesting is that cheaper (presumably FLA) last longer than Gel because they are for "trucks". I have no doubt that it is possible for similar batteries marketed to the truck industry to be lower priced than those marketed to the marine industry, but anyone who takes their battery choice seriously will be able to see through that by reading the specss and data sheet.
 
my advice, and this is backed up by my aching back, is to go as light as possible...if you don’t want to go lithium, then get the smallest batteries and connect them.
I just got rid of my last 140 amp battery....and good riddance (actually I was very lucky because someone removed it off the dock for me....I was building up to the day when I was gonna lift it into my car boot) I bought some cables and will now buy smaller 12v batteries and connect them in parallel
 
My guess is that given the same chemistry and construction, one 24 volt battery will be about twice a long and twice as heavy as two 12 volt batteries connected to give a 24 volt output. They may also have a similar life expectancy, when supplying power for the same usage. That is all else being equal.
 
Lucy52 said:
My guess is that given the same chemistry and construction, one 24 volt battery will be about twice a long and twice as heavy as two 12 volt batteries connected to give a 24 volt output. They may also have a similar life expectancy, when supplying power for the same usage. That is all else being equal.
Click to expand...

A lot of trucks use 2x 12V .... yes there are many that do use 24v versions ..

But the Mercedes and Volvo Trucks we had all had 2x 12V setups ... and was very glad as well - seen price of 24v jobs ??
 
thinwater said:
Lithium. This probably replaces 400 Ah of lead acid, for less money, half the size, and 3x less weight. It's time. I was a lead acid traditionalist for a long time, but I finally felt that time had passed and the price point made sense. And my lead failed, requiring replacement. So far, so good.

WattCycle 280 Ah
Click to expand...
This.

Lithium cells are now cheaper than the cheapest lead acid batteries and last 10x or 20x more cycles. One EVE 280K cell costs about £70 and has about 900Wh of usable power, whereas a typical 110AH leisure battery has 660Wh of usable power and costs at least £100.

Converting your system to use these will cost a bit in capital expense, but SO worth it.

You can also do drop-ins like Litime which will be about the same cost as lead per Wh of usable power and you avoid the capex, but function, form factor, etc. are not as good as systems built from raw cells.
 
Bouba said:
my advice, and this is backed up by my aching back, is to go as light as possible...if you don’t want to go lithium, then get the smallest batteries and connect them.
I just got rid of my last 140 amp battery....and good riddance (actually I was very lucky because someone removed it off the dock for me....I was building up to the day when I was gonna lift it into my car boot) I bought some cables and will now buy smaller 12v batteries and connect them in parallel
Click to expand...
Lots of smaller lead batteries don't last as long as fewer larger ones.

A battery of 8 EVE 280K cells has nearly 7kW of usable power and only weighs 42kg. The difference in power density to lead is staggering -- 169Wh/kg (!!) vs. 25Wh/kg for lead. Almost 7x!!

I am fitting 16 EVE 280K's in one of the two battery box spaces of my Moody 54, which used to hold 4 leisure batteries. Nearly 14kWH of power compared to 2.2kWH of usable power from the previous lead batteries in that box.

The difference is crazy.
 
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