Battery life - Full time cruising

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

How so? No solar charge controller and thus frequent overcharging?

;-) got me!

b.

[rebel heart]

Trojan 105's.

We've had them for a year and a half now: no noticeable drop in voltage or storage. I check the water levels every ~6 months and never see any problems. I never let the voltage get down below 60% and would rather keep it around 80%.

Easiest way to make batteries last long is to keep power hungry stuff off the boat and have solar panels. There's more detail than that and specifics to the boat, but those two guidelines help a lot.

[twinboat]

Installed 8, 6V GC2s from Sams Club in May 2009. We use 160 to 200 amp hours a day. Charged with engine or Honda 2000 until 12/12, when we installed 675 watts of solar. We stored the boat for 5 months over that time period, otherwise we are full time cruisers. Usually run down to 70% at night, then charge up to 85 to 95 % during the day. Have never gone below 50%.
Batteries holding up great, as of today.

Roger
Slow Churn

[Jim Cate]

4x Trojan T-105's: 6 years on last set. Constant cruising, anchoring out 95%, solar and wind, occasional deep discharge, only sporadic full charge in winters. In high sun periods we equalize frequently... simply bypass the regulator on the panels (240 watts). By afternoon the voltage rises to reasonable equalization levels (15.5-16 v) and about 10 amps (about 5% of C). Seems to have worked well.

Cheers,

Jim

[model 10]

We got 8 years from our Lifeline AGM's. Unfortunately we need to replace all 7 of them now, damn!