How I killed my batteries

[zenataomm]

On ‎03‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 22:45, Top cat said:

cooming

?

[Richard10002]

Stegra - What AGMs did you buy? Make? Model? Ah?

Edited June 20, 2017 by Richard10002

[Naughty Cal]

16 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

As a Yorkshireman I am not that tight even. I never weigh them in I simply leave em at whatever yard I am at for them to weigh in.

We are fortunate in that Liam can take them to work and then the scrap men come to them and take them away.

Think we got £10 each for the last pair at the beginning of this year. Effectively made our new batteries £130 for the pair. 

So if we get the same sort of performance out of these as we did the last lot we will be looking at about £0.62 per week.

[MtB]

On 21/06/2017 at 08:29, Naughty Cal said:

We are fortunate in that Liam can take them to work and then the scrap men come to them and take them away.

Think we got £10 each for the last pair at the beginning of this year. Effectively made our new batteries £130 for the pair. 

So if we get the same sort of performance out of these as we did the last lot we will be looking at about £0.62 per week.

 

You were had over. 

I got £15 each for the last six batteries I weighed in at the scrappy in Burghfield!

[rusty69]

3 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You were had over. 

I got £15 each for the last six batteries I weighed in at the scrappy in Burghfield!

Maybe too far for NC to go to drop off batteries,and theirs were not as heavy as yours. 

[MtB]

On 21/06/2017 at 09:02, rusty69 said:

Maybe too far for NC to go to drop off batteries,and theirs were not as heavy as yours. 

Mine were 25kg each, almost excactly.

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Mine were 25kg each, almost excactly.

Were they full of heavy water

[MtB]

On 21/06/2017 at 09:07, rusty69 said:

Were they full of heavy water

 

No. Stupidly it didn't occur to me to make sure they were 'topped up properly' before taking them...

Let alone using sand instead of water as someone once suggested!

[Alan de Enfield]

We have a 'man' who comes and collects, pays £5 for 'small' (car sized), £10 for 110Ah and £20 for 230Ah.

 

No hassle, no cost or time to take to the scrap yard and 'pound-notes' in your hand.

[Robbo]

19 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Ok so at last my batteries are failing. I am confined to the boat at present and live off grid so am using more leccy than normal and during the night my fridge was clicking on and off and a quick look showed batteries hitting below 11 volts so hey ho I ordered precisely the same again. They have lasted me 125 weeks precisely of great full time liveaboard service for the princely sum off exactly £2.38 per week. Sealed so never needed to look at the things until someone changes em for me tommorow. Thats a hell of a lot  of cycling for cheap zero maintainance lifestyle . So to sum up Mr Trojan and his pals have more chance of seeing snow on the sun than being fitted in my boat. I am not knocking what others do just giving  some first hand long term liveaboard experience re batteries that woks FOR ME.

Liveaboard off grid here with no solar, heavy user and poor maintenance of the 4 Trojans I have.  The cost of £433.56 fitted 1303 days ago, so approx £2.33 per week so far and still going. 

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, Robbo said:

Liveaboard off grid here with no solar, heavy user and poor maintenance of the 4 Trojans I have.  The cost of £433.56 fitted 1303 days ago, so approx £2.33 per week so far and still going. 

Now BE HONEST...what do you mean by POOR maintainance? Even ever having to look at ONCE and put water in a battery is once too often, as a human race we simply dont live long enough for it ever to be a worthwile useage of our limited time. Most people seem to have to pee about with such batteries. I do think as Stegra says that agm batteries may be worth a punt sometime in the future though as prices have come down.. what say you?

[Robbo]

12 hours ago, stegra said:

How about AGMs? They cost a little more but far less than when I last pondered over this about 7 years ago; typically around £1/Ah at the lower end of the market. Their claimed DoD (up to 80%) and faster charging rates up to a certain level seem to make them an obvious choice where cost is an issue.

I'm living in my campervan whilst I work on the boat and I fitted AGMs as a trial before the big spend on the boat batteries. I also have no time for constantly monitoring batteries but force myself to get the multimeter out every now and then in the middle of the night to check how the fridge being turned up (or down... never quite sure which is correct) is affecting them. So far all indications are that they are doing very well. Not even comparable to the previous cheap batteries.

I don't have the skills, nor any desire to acquire them, to measure the depth of discharge but if the claims of 80% being safe are true, the battery bank has effectively been increased by over 50%.

I think lithium batteries are now cost effective for off-grid liveaboards as well as having a number of advantages over other types of batteries.   The main plus is that it doesn't need regular charging to 100%, when your charging via genny this is a real benefit.    The cost per cycle count is already very close to that Trojans.

[Robbo]

7 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Now BE HONEST...what do you mean by POOR maintainance? Even ever having to look at ONCE and put water in a battery is once too often, as a human race we simply dont live long enough for it ever to be a worthwile useage of our limited time. Most people seem to have to pee about with such batteries. I do think as Stegra says that agm batteries may be worth a punt sometime in the future though as prices have come down.. what say you?

I think I've put water in them twice, they were getting a little low.  I charge them at a high amp's percentage (around 26-30%) so they get hit hard.

See my above comment on the lithiums, if you can afford the high initial price they are a good battery type for the way we treat them.   

Edited June 21, 2017 by Robbo

[mrsmelly]

3 minutes ago, Robbo said:

I think I've put water in them twice, they were getting a little low.  I charge them at a high amp's percentage (around 26-30%) so they get hit hard.

See my above comment on the lithiums, if you can afford the high initial price they are a good battery type for the way we treat them.   

Cheers I had never even considered lithium. I have already got my new batteries now but perhaps next time they will be worth looking into 

[Naughty Cal]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Mine were 25kg each, almost excactly.

Ours were 23.3kg.

It wasn't worth our effort driving them to the scrap dealers for an extra £10.

 

[BruceinSanity]

1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

Most people seem to have to pee about with such batteries.

Never thought of peeing in them, my mistake?

[Robbo]

59 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Cheers I had never even considered lithium. I have already got my new batteries now but perhaps next time they will be worth looking into 

They are on my shopping list for when my Trojans are not meeting my current needs.   Although as my other boat (where my needs are minimal) need the batteries replaced it might be sooner rather than later.

[rusty69]

2 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Even ever having to look at ONCE and put water in a battery is once too often, as a human race we simply dont live long enough for it ever to be a worthwile useage of our limited time

Takes about 10 minutes. Less than an engine oil change! 

[Naughty Cal]

Just now, rusty69 said:

Takes about 10 minutes. Less than an engine oil change! 

Ten minutes too many for our liking.

Mind you it takes ten minutes just to dig your way to where our batteries are hidden away so it would be a longer process still for us!

Not worth the hassle when sealed batteries last us long enough.

[mrsmelly]

5 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Takes about 10 minutes. Less than an engine oil change! 

Yes quite but an oil change is a necesity at some point on an internal combustion engine whereas topping up batteries does not have to be.

4 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Ten minutes too many for our liking.

Mind you it takes ten minutes just to dig your way to where our batteries are hidden away so it would be a longer process still for us!

Not worth the hassle when sealed batteries last us long enough.

Precisely.

[ditchcrawler]

57 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Yes quite but an oil change is a necesity at some point on an internal combustion engine  

I know some people who would debate that. I was corresponding with a boater who claimed he did 1000 hrs. per year, he had only done 3 oil changes on a 3 year old boat because the book said "change the oil every 200 hrs or every year", so he dose it every year.

[stegra]

22 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

Stegra - What AGMs did you buy? Make? Model? Ah?

First off I replaced the cranking batteries in both my vans with something similar to these from Alpha Batteries. One of the vans had been killing batteries for a while through its need of prolonged cranking. I was very impressed with them which prompted me to get AGMs for the LBs on the campervan. I don't remember the supplier/brand but they went up from £99 to £140 soon after I bought them so not such good value now.

The best value I've seen recently was battery firm at Crick. I can't find the name of the supplier just now but they said they were extending their show special rates until the end of June.