Battery Replacement
To All:
Would appreciate recommendations and information to select and purchase 8D
batteries that must be replaced.
Kindest regards,
Leonard Brunotte
From: "Leonard Brunotte" lb@myguardian.com
Would appreciate recommendations and information to select and purchase 8D
batteries that must be replaced.(endsnip
Give us a little more info. What are they used for?
House?
Engine start?
Both?
Do you favor regular lead acid or AGM? (are they easy to get to in order to
add water, or would you rather not deal with that?)
It will be easier to make recommendations if we know how they will be used.
Some general guidelines that I go by are that lead acid is generally cheaper
amp hour per amp hour than AGM, but more work.
For house function, you can generally get more bang for the buck with Golf
Carts than 8D's, and they won't break your back. There is the initial cost
of the jumpers and such.
Brent Hodges
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Leonard Brunotte lb@myguardian.com wrote:
Would appreciate recommendations and information to select and purchase 8D
batteries that must be replaced.
How wedded are you to 8Ds? Is this for a starting or house bank application?
Scott Welch
Island Eagle
I replaced my whole bank with 6 Trojan 105 6 volts. It originally was 2
8Ds, one house, one start. I hooked up 2 of the 105s as start and 4 as
house, but always combine them so they are all taken down evenly and I get
a total of 675 amp/hours of capacity. Yes, many advise against this because
if i were stupid enough to run them down too far I couldn't start the
engine. However, this has never happened in many years of cruising, and if
it did I would fire up the genset from it's isolated battery and start
right up.
The six volts sit in the same box as the 8Ds did, but they are taller. I
put pieces of marine plywood on the sides of the batteries to make the box
higher.
Capt. Jeff on Adirondack, Monk 36 #184
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Scott Welch scott@harwel.com wrote:
On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Leonard Brunotte lb@myguardian.com
wrote:
Would appreciate recommendations and information to select and purchase
8D
batteries that must be replaced.
How wedded are you to 8Ds? Is this for a starting or house bank
application?
Scott Welch
Island Eagle
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'Lo All,
On the Celestial, I have 6 each 6 Volt Trojan batteries in a
series/parallel configuration for the house battery bank - i.e. 12
Volt output. I was always having to add water - about once a month,
because the Heart inverter/charger was floating the batteries at
about 14.0 Volts, according to my digital multimeter. Trojan
batteries are supposed to be floated at 13.2 volts according to their
website (see below). That little 0.80 volt delta was causing the
batteries to gas constantly.
So, I purchased a small Victron charger to float the batteries at
13.2 volts. It is only a 100W charger, if I recall correctly, but is
sufficient to maintain the batteries at full charge, despite running
lights, bilge pump, security system and battery desulphators when the
boat is at the dock. I turn off the charger in the 3KW Heart
inverter/charger when the boat is just sitting. When running the
generator, I turn the Heart charger on with radar, VHF, etc. running.
I no longer have the gassing problem with the batteries. I have had
to add water only once in the past year - and the amount added was
minimal. The Victron and Heart "play nice" together when both are
turned on. The Victron, being a small 3 stage charger, seems to
struggle if I turn off the Heart charger and then turn on the Victron
- until it changes to the float stage. As a result, I usually leave
the Victron on all the time, so that it will have started the float
stage when I turn off the Heart charger. My batteries spend a
majority of their time on "float" charge.
Before I installed the small Victron charger, I discussed the merits
of the idea with Arild Jenson, who concurred and recommended I check
out Victron chargers. Victron was the only charger manufacturer that
I could find that made chargers that had a float voltage of 13.2
volts. I imagine that a good technician could fine tune any charger,
but without prerequisite technical knowledge and/or documentation, I
was afraid to try.
I discussed this installation in a post on T&T when I first installed
the Victron charger and said I would report on the results. The
thread about a replacement battery reminded me.....
As a result of my experience, I would recommend that owners should
check their battery manufacturer's charging specifications -
especially float voltage - and try to meet them. Or, you could just
turn off the charger and try to remember to turn it back on, which I
have tried, too...
http://www.trojanbattery.com/BatteryMaintenance/Charging.aspx
which recommends Trojan flooded batteries be floated at 13.2 Volts.
To illustrate the differences between battery manufacturer's
recommendations, since I could not find charging recommendations on
their website, I called East Penn/Deka (also sold as Die Hard at our
local Sams Club) to see what they recommend and was told that their
12 Volt flooded Marine batteries should be charged as follows: Bulk
14.85 V, Absorption 14.55 V, and Float 13.50 V. Please note the
"preciseness" of their recommendation - to the nearest 100th of a volt!!
While the voltage differences seem small to me, to the batteries,
they apparently are not. Also, each manufacturer's battery type has
its own charging recommendations.
I make no claim to be a battery expert, but had a problem and seem to
have solved it. YMMV.
Take care and be safe.
Wayne
Celestial
Albin 43 Sundeck
Near Panama City, FL