Charge comfort level

[Cheechako]

I voted 60-70%. Not because I'm really comfortable there, but charging the house bank in the am after a long time over night. Not unusual to see 11.5 volts left in the batteries. Not sure heavy cycling is bad for the batteries really though.... certainly not as bad as letting them sulphate up from non cycling...

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by Bean Counter

We run the generator 1 - 2 hrs a day at daybreak (some clear long sunny days not at all if the solar panels 720W can do the job - which struggle if use all 2 fridges and freezer). At the same time make 26+ gallons of water and heat 15 gallons of water and every now and then run the clothes washer.

Batteries hardly ever below 75% charged. These are Gel batteries now 7 years old.

I'm similar. We run the generator one hour in the morning and one in the evening and make water (40gph) at the same time. I have a 230v refrigerator that drives this cycle, not so much the batteries.

I do agree with sailorboy though that in the overall cost of boats and cruising, batteries are at the low spectrum, along with diesel.

[sailorboy1]

467 views and only 17 poll votes. Do some not know what they are comfortable with? So far the "play no attention" people are winning. Are the rest of us just making ourselves crazy?

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

467 views and only 17 poll votes. Do some not know what they are comfortable with? So far the "play no attention" people are winning. Are the rest of us just making ourselves crazy?

Yep. Worry warts.

[puffcard]

My batteries are cheap, two FLA 12v GC with 310ah, around $250-300 total. I run them between 50-100%, sunny days with 200w solar I'm usually back to 90-100%. They can sIt under 60 for couple days, I'm ok. I plan on replacing every three years and sell the old to a golf cart shop. So getting new batteries for less than $150. Life is two short to worry if I can get more than 5 years out of a set.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

467 views and only 17 poll votes. Do some not know what they are comfortable with? So far the "play no attention" people are winning. Are the rest of us just making ourselves crazy?

Most people don’t worry about their batteries. In large part I bet that’s b/c most people here don’t travel very far, or for very long, at any one time.

Most sailors are daysailors or racers. There’s a large number who are livaboards. A lot of people charter. Of those that do venture off the dock in their own boats, most will be gone for only a couple of weeks — at most. Then it’s back to the dock where most boats will be plugged into shore power, or left to solar where they easily recover.

Given this, most sailors and cruisers have no reason to be concerned about their batteries.

I bet the percentage of CF members who rely soley or largely on their batteries for months at a time, are few. Your ratio of 17 to 467, or 1:17 is probably not far off this mark. Actually, it’s probably higher than the real world ratio. As has been noted many times, most boats never go anywhere.

[zboss]

Up until now we had Trojan FLA that I would start to get worried about if they dropped below 60%. Less so now with the firefly’s. In either case, i like getting up to about 90% and I know about how much Ah my solar can put in. If it won’t get me to 80% or so, I’ll run the engine for 30 minutes to bulk up the batteries and make some hot water.

[Tayana42]

I usually find myself wanting to recharge when my battery monitor shows 60-70 percent for a couple of reasons. 1. I know that the monitor is just an in accurate approximation and 2. I’m a bit conservative and don’t want to take any chance of not being able to recharge appropriately. I don’t have solar and so I rely on a Honda 2000i and my engine alternator. I know I could run the batteries down to 50 percent and the recharge at bulk rate would not take all that much longer but (here is my conservative part) what if I have issues recharging. I’d like to know it with a significant margin before getting down to 50 percent.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

467 views and only 17 poll votes. Do some not know what they are comfortable with? So far the "play no attention" people are winning. Are the rest of us just making ourselves crazy?

Maybe the other 449 are like me. I couldn't answer because:

1. I have AGM, not FLA

2. It is not clear whether you are talking abut how low SOC is allowed to drop to or how high it is returned to when charging.

3. If the answer to No 2 is the latter, there is no appropriate choice. 90% is insufficient.

[Mirage35]

Okay, I voted and appear to be with the majority. But doubt if my opinion is useful.

After a first season on the boat I saw that the SOC showed as low as about 65% after two days without charging, because that's the longest we went. And it didn't cost me any sleep.

But now that I've had some winter months to study the specs I'm not convinced the meter is giving me good data, I want to better understand the batteries, and maybe I wasn't worried because I just don't know what I'm doing.

And in our circumstances, as long as the starting battery is good we can get to a port and deal with other problems pretty readily. So it's easier to be relaxed (although I know the price of these batteries and don't want to replace them until I have to ...)

Edit: BTW we have AGM

[goat]

Originally Posted by StuM

Maybe the other 449 are like me. I couldn't answer because:

1. I have AGM, not FLA

2. It is not clear whether you are talking abut how low SOC is allowed to drop to or how high it is returned to when charging.

3. If the answer to No 2 is the latter, there is no appropriate choice. 90% is insufficient.

Or like me; mobile site only, no poll available.

[Tayana42]

Originally Posted by goat

Or like me; mobile site only, no poll available.

Goat, on your mobile site in the upper right there may be three dots. If so, touch the dots and select web view and then you can vote in the poll. It took me a while to figure that out. Hope that helps.

[newhaul]

Didn't quite understand the poll if you are looking for how far you charge up or how far you normally discharge down to.
I went with discharging to before recharging. I use between 20 and 30 % as a max overnight when on passages. And less than 10% at anchor. With a full charge daily via solar and / or wind.

[boatpoker]

I don't like to see less than 12.4v (in my wet golf cart batteries) when I wake up in the morning. If it looks like a sunny day I'll wait for the solar panel to do it's thing. If it's cloudy I'll run the Yamaha 2400Watt for a while. If it's 12.2v the Yamaha goes on right away.

That is a simple real world answer.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Is it more about the percentage or the voltage? I forget when my alarm starts going off, but once it does, the panel shows a value of 11.x