Which replacement batteries?

steved

steved

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Apologies in advance for another battery thread....

On the domestic side my boat is currently fitted with 4 x 6 volt 220 Ah Lifeline AGM batteries. I believe they are the original ones fitted to the boat when new some 12 years ago! They now appear to be losing their appetite to retain charge.

To replace like for like would cost in the region of £380 per battery, over £1500 total.

So what do my learned friends feel would be a suitable replacement at a more economical cost, I'm happy to continue with the 6 volt batteries as the wiring is set up for this.

I'm generally on shore power, but do like nights at anchor, the main draw would be from the fridge and freezer (2 separate under counter appliances). A 5kw generator is also fitted.

I have a Victron Multiplus Compact 12/2000/80 80Amp automatic battery charger with integral 2,000w inverter, would I have to change any of the charging settings if I changed to say wet batteries etc?

Thanks
 
You could replace them with 4 Trojan T-105 batteries, which should only cost about £600 and give similar capacity. The default settings of the charger will be OK for these (assuming the default settings haven't been changed on your charger).
 
If you have a 'smart' charge controller, you will probably have to change the settings if you replace AGM with wet acid - check.

I've found 6V deep cycle Trojans virtually bomb proof, but they are a bit pricey.

However, as you are mostly marina based, do you actually need all that battery capacity? After all a night at anchor doesn't take all that much, even with a fridge/freezer. I assume all your interior lights, and so on, are LED, and their current drain is trivial.
 
Minchsailor said:
If you have a 'smart' charge controller, you will probably have to change the settings if you replace AGM with wet acid - check.
Click to expand...

I checked, and as I said earlier, the default settings are OK.

Minchsailor said:
I've found 6V deep cycle Trojans virtually bomb proof, but they are a bit pricey.
Click to expand...

They're less than half the price of like-for-like replacements.

Minchsailor said:
However, as you are mostly marina based, do you actually need all that battery capacity? After all a night at anchor doesn't take all that much, even with a fridge/freezer. I assume all your interior lights, and so on, are LED, and their current drain is trivial.
Click to expand...

A 440Ah 12v bank isn't huge; I had 660Ah on my last boat. Bigger banks accept charge more readily and last longer in typical use. The OP says he's had 12 years out of his.
 
Minchsailor said:
If you have a 'smart' charge controller, you will probably have to change the settings if you replace AGM with wet acid - check.

I've found 6V deep cycle Trojans virtually bomb proof, but they are a bit pricey.

However, as you are mostly marina based, do you actually need all that battery capacity? After all a night at anchor doesn't take all that much, even with a fridge/freezer. I assume all your interior lights, and so on, are LED, and their current drain is trivial.
Click to expand...
+1. Trojan T105's are great. Though if you are nearly always on shore power maybe more bullet proof than you need but even so, should last for ages. And maybe 2 would do - on the hook long term with a fridge & laptop 2 x T105's do me fine, rarely down to below 75% overnight with 225Ah.
 
I too have 10 0f them, also 12 years old. As you say they are real money compared to 12 years ago.

Trojan do a similar at a more reasonable £230
https://www.tayna.co.uk/industrial-batteries/trojan/?ordering=&A-8=6&A-10=AGM

Not cheap but I certainly wouldn't wish to go back to regular lead acid.

Interesting that my bank of 1,100Ah at 12v still performs well though obviously has lost a fair bit of capacity. I don't cycle it hard so that has helped even though my engine room temps are frequently at 40+ in the Med.
 
Forty_Two said:
I too have 10 0f them, also 12 years old. As you say they are real money compared to 12 years ago.

Trojan do a similar at a more reasonable £230
https://www.tayna.co.uk/industrial-batteries/trojan/?ordering=&A-8=6&A-10=AGM

Not cheap but I certainly wouldn't wish to go back to regular lead acid.

Interesting that my bank of 1,100Ah at 12v still performs well though obviously has lost a fair bit of capacity. I don't cycle it hard so that has helped even though my engine room temps are frequently at 40+ in the Med.
Click to expand...

I did a huge amount of research on batteries recently. I have leant a few things.
Ideal battery temperature whether you have gel, AGM of wet cell is 25 degC. If you have batteries 10 degC higher than this, you half their life. Another 10 degC higher again and you half again.
If you are running batteries at high temperature you may as well reduce the battery bank size as the heat is likely to kill them before you run the battery design life cycles. In this situation assuming you intend to use true deep cycle batteries such as Trojan T105s, Lifeline AGM, Etc you financially better off designing your installation to cycle to 50% daily. This would likely be quite a small bank.
We have just replaced 1000Ah of 8D truck batteries ( all we could buy at the time) with 450Ah of Trojan T105RE. We are cycling them to only 85% DOD nightly ( so using 15% of their capacity). They are getting to 31degC during the day and dropping to 28degC at night. We are leaving the battery box lid off at anchor to promote free cooling but on passage we have mechanical battery box ventilation using a centrifugal fan to pull air from the bilge and push the air out through a dorade. The fan is controlled by a digital temperature controller set to run at 31 degC.
Th new T105RE versions use carbon in their construction to help increase their life in PSOC conditions. This is suppose to help by 15%, but who can tell. We bough the batteries here in Puerto Rico for £120 each. The space we have saved in our huge battery box has now been converted in to two extra lockers. One houses the Singer sewing machine and the other has our stainless steel and electrical spares. Since we took 120kg of weight off the starboard side of the boat we have had to do some rethinking with our lockers to get the boat back on an even keel
 
geem said:
I did a huge amount of research on batteries recently. I have leant a few things.
Ideal battery temperature whether you have gel, AGM of wet cell is 25 degC. If you have batteries 10 degC higher than this, you half their life. Another 10 degC higher again and you half again.
If you are running batteries at high temperature you may as well reduce the battery bank size as the heat is likely to kill them before you run the battery design life cycles. In this situation assuming you intend to use true deep cycle batteries such as Trojan T105s, Lifeline AGM, Etc you financially better off designing your installation to cycle to 50% daily. This would likely be quite a small bank.
We have just replaced 1000Ah of 8D truck batteries ( all we could buy at the time) with 450Ah of Trojan T105RE. We are cycling them to only 85% DOD nightly ( so using 15% of their capacity). They are getting to 31degC during the day and dropping to 28degC at night. We are leaving the battery box lid off at anchor to promote free cooling but on passage we have mechanical battery box ventilation using a centrifugal fan to pull air from the bilge and push the air out through a dorade. The fan is controlled by a digital temperature controller set to run at 31 degC.
Th new T105RE versions use carbon in their construction to help increase their life in PSOC conditions. This is suppose to help by 15%, but who can tell. We bough the batteries here in Puerto Rico for £120 each. The space we have saved in our huge battery box has now been converted in to two extra lockers. One houses the Singer sewing machine and the other has our stainless steel and electrical spares. Since we took 120kg of weight off the starboard side of the boat we have had to do some rethinking with our lockers to get the boat back on an even keel
Click to expand...

I guess when the water temperature is around 29degC it's difficult to keep the batteries much cooler, even with bilge ventilation. Your approach seems very sensible.
 
Excessive heat is possibly unlikely on the East Coast... ;)

Apart from the initial cost, there are a lot of advantages to your AGMs. I've got Odyssey PC2150s, which have been going well for a few years. There was another battery thread recently, though, where someone put a link to some much cheaper AGMs - I would seriously consider those before defaulting back to wet lead-acid batteries.
 
steved said:
Apologies in advance for another battery thread....

On the domestic side my boat is currently fitted with 4 x 6 volt 220 Ah Lifeline AGM batteries. I believe they are the original ones fitted to the boat when new some 12 years ago! They now appear to be losing their appetite to retain charge.

To replace like for like would cost in the region of £380 per battery, over £1500 total.

So what do my learned friends feel would be a suitable replacement at a more economical cost, I'm happy to continue with the 6 volt batteries as the wiring is set up for this.

I'm generally on shore power, but do like nights at anchor, the main draw would be from the fridge and freezer (2 separate under counter appliances). A 5kw generator is also fitted.

I have a Victron Multiplus Compact 12/2000/80 80Amp automatic battery charger with integral 2,000w inverter, would I have to change any of the charging settings if I changed to say wet batteries etc?

Thanks
Click to expand...

How many cycles do you anticipate in the average year?
No point spending a lot of cash to get a system good for 1000s of cycles if you don't use your boat in that way.
Since you have a generator, you can always start that if you run out of Ah a handful of times in a typical year.

Do you have any info about how many times you've discharged your batteries over the last 12 years, and how deeply?
Are you seeing the cycle life kicking in, or just old age?

Are we talking motoryacht here?
 
pvb said:
You could replace them with 4 Trojan T-105 batteries, which should only cost about £600 and give similar capacity. The default settings of the charger will be OK for these (assuming the default settings haven't been changed on your charger).
Click to expand...
read the thread as I think my 2x120AH 12v basic lead acids will need replacing next season plus we need to increase our capacity so we can extend our cruising/overnighting without shore power or genny. We have no more space for more batteries. 2x6v trojans would take up a similar space as the 2x existing 12v and provide similar AH capacity.
I read somewhere ( not on the data sheet) that the trojans can be 'deeper cycled' than say the 50% recommended for my existing batteries? If this is the case then there would, effectively be more capacity for the space available albeit at twice the price?
The working life of batteries has been discussed in a recent thread and I was perturbed to see that there is a reduction of 50% life expectancy when temps are 10 degrees higher. The temps reffered to were a rise from 20 degrees to 30 degrees ( we are in the Med so 30 degrees is the summer norm) HOWEVER the trojan fact sheet suggests that the batteries are at 100% efficiency at 27 degrees
and improve higher than that " but that life expectancy is then reduced" as this nominal 30 degrees is only 3 degrees higher than the optimum of 27 this make me think that the trojans may have a longer life expectancy than I have been lead to believe of batteries in general?
I will appreciate comments on increasing capacity without extra space and also the issue of life expectancy against ambient temperature. Hopefully this is not a bad thread drift !
 
While the degradation over time at higher temperatures is significant, most yachts would be aiming to use their batteries and have them fail due to the number of cycles.
I'm not aware of any clear data proving that Med or Carib temperatures make a big dent in the number of cycles you get, if you are cycling your batteries every day?

You can have big bank and give it an easy life and it dies in 12 years.
You can have bank half as big and it might die in 4, 8, 11 or whatever years, and you might have to run the genny a few more times.
It's a tough thing to optimise when you have to guess most of the conditions!
Bu some people would place a high cash value on having plenty of reserve and no stress about the freezer. Others would say 'the fridge has stopped working because I saved £400 on batteries. But there's cold lager at that pub over there..'
 
lw395 said:
While the degradation over time at higher temperatures is significant, most yachts would be aiming to use their batteries and have them fail due to the number of cycles.
I'm not aware of any clear data proving that Med or Carib temperatures make a big dent in the number of cycles you get, if you are cycling your batteries every day?

You can have big bank and give it an easy life and it dies in 12 years.
You can have bank half as big and it might die in 4, 8, 11 or whatever years, and you might have to run the genny a few more times.
It's a tough thing to optimise when you have to guess most of the conditions!
Bu some people would place a high cash value on having plenty of reserve and no stress about the freezer. Others would say 'the fridge has stopped working because I saved £400 on batteries. But there's cold lager at that pub over there..'
Click to expand...
There is ample clear data from reputable battery manufacturers that high temperature will vastly reduce battery life . Have a look at the Trojan, Victron and Lifeline websites to name but a few. They publish graphs of temperature against life expectancy
 
If you're about to inflict significant pain to the wallet, it may be a good time to rethink your electrical systems.

If you want more capacity, especially at anchor, one way to get this without adding amp hours is to add solar panels. If you've got the space, a couple of hundred watts would probably keep up with your needs at anchor. You may also find that you don't need to be plugged in all the time in the marina, which will save the price of a beer or three over a year.
 
geem said:
There is ample clear data from reputable battery manufacturers that high temperature will vastly reduce battery life . Have a look at the Trojan, Victron and Lifeline websites to name but a few. They publish graphs of temperature against life expectancy
Click to expand...

Plenty of graphs about aging in terms of time.
Can you link to any in terms of reduced number of cycles?
 
Stemar said:
If you're about to inflict significant pain to the wallet, it may be a good time to rethink your electrical systems.

If you want more capacity, especially at anchor, one way to get this without adding amp hours is to add solar panels. If you've got the space, a couple of hundred watts would probably keep up with your needs at anchor. You may also find that you don't need to be plugged in all the time in the marina, which will save the price of a beer or three over a year.
Click to expand...


So true; add some solar, LED everything, see if fridge/freezer can be made more efficient, think about AP, etc.

I reduced spec from 6x to 4x Trojan T105s with greater redundancy this way.
 
Seek advice from Battery Megastore. They are very helpful and the prices are good.

I recently replaced Alphaline (spelling?) and needed the same physical size. The replacements offered and bought were Hankook. Identical and suggests badging.
 
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