What count as a cycle (battery life)

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

What about Gels?
Why have they fallen out of favor? I think quite possibly my next set may be Gels, it seems as long as you Read and follow the directions, they may have the longest life of all regular lead acid batteries.
Fireflies are to me, too unknown, for the price. I’ll wait before I decide there, but Gels have been around for a long time, and I have to assume they came too early? Before we could routinely actually maintain batteries to the .1V ?
Now that very good programmable chargers exist, the Gel story may have a different ending?

Too easy to kill! And too expensive for killing them not to be a real problem!

Quality of the charger doesn't solve everything -- don't forget the stupid operators -- i.e., us.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

leisure batteries

Very odd sounding to me, like "accessory bank" I suppose.

Is it a UK/Commonwealth phrase?

I suppose same meaning as "dual use", not true deep cycle but basically a (maybe) more robust cranking battery, like the Optima color-tops?

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Fireflies are to me, too unknown, for the price.

At $500/100AH to me uniquely suited to those in an unavoidable PSOC context, who aren't willing to step all the way up to LFP.

Usually I would think would be better value to invest in overcoming the PSOC issue, if possible.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Too easy to kill! And too expensive for killing them not to be a real problem!

Quality of the charger doesn't solve everything -- don't forget the stupid operators -- i.e., us.

Protective BMS gadgetry, simpler but along the same lines as with LFP can help protect our gear from our brain farts.

Besides the sensitivity to overcharging, afaik extreme heat is GEL's only other weakness.

And difficulty replacing in remote locations, but really FLA GCs are the only batt without that issue.

[john61ct]

For those who really need AGMs, I believe Full River now markets pretty much globally? Very widely used in Australia/NZ, and pretty well respected.

Besides Lifeline and Firefly, Odyssey and Northstar are the other known-good quality AGM makers in the new world markets. Rolls and Trojan's are too new IMO, and Deka's are known-meh.

On the FLA side, beside Rolls, Deka/EPM and Trojan, there's U.S. Battery, Crown, and Superior, but I doubt any of these market into Europe?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Protective BMS gadgetry, simpler but along the same lines as with LFP can help protect our gear from our brain farts.

Besides the sensitivity to overcharging, afaik extreme heat is GEL's only other weakness.

And difficulty replacing in remote locations, but really FLA GCs are the only batt without that issue.

Yes, but if you're going to go to all the trouble and expense of setting up a whole BMS system, then why be bothering with gels, and why not go all the way to lithium?

I think lithium is starting to get close to the cost per AH cycled to golf car batteries -- depending on how you count it, and depending on how much value you assign to the remote future usage of the very long cycle life lithium batts, and depending of course on using your batteries intensely enough to use up that cycle life within the time-limited life span of lithium.

That's got to make AGM and gel just totally irrelevant, doesn't it? They'll be actually more expensive than lithium to any intense user, and with all of the disadvantages of lead acid. To my mind, for long distance cruisers, there are only two really sensible choices -- golf cart batts, which are at least arguably cheaper per AH cycled, at least for less than the most intense users, or lithium, which come with vast advantages of different kinds, not the least of which, for sailboats, is weight.


I'm hoping to earn some money and start building a new boat pretty soon, but if I don't and it turns out I will keep sailing this one for a while, I've pretty much decided that one of my two batteries spaces will go over to about 600 amp/hours of LiFePo, and the other will continue to contain four Trojan TMX27's. The boat was originally built like that (with two separate banks; I combined them only later). The backup Trojans will solve the "emergency replacement in remote areas" problem which you mention, which is a very serious question.

[a64pilot]

I think we are misusing the term BMS.
The BMS’s I’m used to were for kilowatt hour SCUBA Li-PO’s and monitored each cell for charge and then balanced the whole pack by cell, also of course a high temp cutoff.
I don’t think you could or would want to do that with a Gel, to start with, you would need to find individual Gel cells, something that I have never seen.
I think my Sterling Pro charge Ulta, my Balmar 614 and my Magnum Ms2812 and my Outback 80 are all set up and can handle a Gel battery.
If not, why not?

I want to think Gels didn’t work cause people took out regular flooded La batteries back in the day with just dumb 1 stage chargers, and tossed the Gel in and it died from being overcharged.

I want to think now with the preponderance of programmable multi stage chargers, that Gels can easily be properly cared for?

I’m waiting for Maine Sail to chime in, cause I assume he has the answer, and most of the rest of us just have theories, least mine is just theory anyway.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by john61ct

...... Rolls and Trojan's are too new IMO, and Deka's are known-meh.
...?

Rolls AGMs have been shipping for at least 7 years.

[a64pilot]

Rolls and Trojan both have excellent flooded batteries, but for AGM why not Lifeline?
In particular I have heard that the Trojan AGM doesn’t live up to the flooded rep.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Rolls and Trojan both have excellent flooded batteries, but for AGM why not Lifeline?
In particular I have heard that the Trojan AGM doesn’t live up to the flooded rep.

Lifeline has sold a lot of AGMs into the marine market. That is probably why there are so many anecdotal reports of a short lifetime. Lifeline did not start recommending equalization for AGMs till there were numerous issues in the field.
I have not BenedIctine AGMs. have owned Northstar, Victron and Rolls AGM batts. The Victron and Rolls was/is a good experience. The Northstar suxed.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Very odd sounding to me, like "accessory bank" I suppose.

Is it a UK/Commonwealth phrase?

I suppose same meaning as "dual use", not true deep cycle but basically a (maybe) more robust cranking battery, like the Optima color-tops?

Yes I think so. The sort of battery you will see in a chandlers or caravan place. Now often sealed with a label making remarkable claims. Here is an example, 12v and 110ah for £67 or $90 so what is not to like. In three years take them to the scappy and get £20 for the lead, bargain. If it all goes wrong and you destroy a one so what, take it out of the circuit and use the remaining battery.

[antoha]

Paul, what was your experience with the Northstar? I just got 3 AGM 27M’s, was reading everywhere they have decent reputation. Thank you!

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Yes I think so. The sort of battery you will see in a chandlers or caravan place. Now often sealed with a label making remarkable claims. Here is an example, 12v and 110ah for £67 or $90 so what is not to like. In three years take them to the scappy and get £20 for the lead, bargain. If it all goes wrong and you destroy a one so what, take it out of the circuit and use the remaining battery.

That is actually what I used to do. Buy a new set of Walmart batteries every year for the boat, after they were a year old, they went to the 5th wheel.
Never had a failure. But of course I bought a new set of batteries every year, which was only two, so it made sense to me.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by antoha

Paul, what was your experience with the Northstar? I just got 3 AGM 27M’s, was reading everywhere they have decent reputation. Thank you!

Mine failed after just over one year. Mostly at a dock on a Victron charger. Manufacturer was less than no help. Retailer felt bad about the treatment and stepped in and gave me some almost new Victrons.

Hopefully you'll have no need to deal.with Northstar for after sales issues.

[john61ct]

I keep waiting for others to speak up with bad Northstar experiences, but this is the only one I've heard, against several dozen very positive reports.

Lifeline and Odyssey are definitely at the top though.

*if* you actually need AGM