Thread: Lowest Voltage before Danger

There's siome info on their website. Look up your tech sheets for the type of battery you have.
Also gives recommendations for the recharging parameters
Welcome to Fullriver!

Thanks Toxic.....I did read that from the site before posting, but either I've missed it if it's there or am not looking in the right spot.

I'm testing how long my Engel can run without any charging assistance but don't want to shorten the battery's life in the process. I'm simply measuring the voltage of the battery and nothing else...

if you never go below 12.6, your battery will last forever!

Originally Posted by Eevo

if you never go below 12.6, your battery will last forever!

And on a similar note, a yellow top optima has a design life of 400 cycles to 80% discharge...

If you know the model, and it's not readily available on the website, the manufacturer might be the best source for the answer.

How would you be recharging said battery? do you have some kind of battery management / charging system?

Originally Posted by catch-22

I'm testing how long my Engel can run without any charging assistance but don't want to shorten the battery's life in the process. I'm simply measuring the voltage of the battery and nothing else...

I guess your Engel, like mine, doesn't have a low voltage cutout. I might make one for mine.

Tonight I've been modifying my Engel to add 3 fans to help get rid of heat in the compressor/condenser area.

I also added a digital temperature controller so that I don't have to fiddle around with the thermostat settings from day to night.

It's currently running under test in the garage.

Hi catch and try this link, and look at page 8.

http://www.fullriverdcbattery.com/me...f6fe21ec5eae88

Here is a voltage chart that will help you.

There is a big drop from 50% to 40% on that chart. Is that why some recommend not discharging below 50%?

Sent from my GT-P5210 using AULRO mobile app

Hi Mick and there is a lot of controversy over just how low you can safely discharge batteries.

This 50% level is really not that relevant when talking about RV battery use.

If you were living off-grid and depended on your battery power supply 24/7 then you actually should not discharge your batteries below 65% ( 12.28v ), to be able to get the maximum energy throughput over the life span of a give battery.

On the other end of the usage scale are all us RV users.

We only need battery power in busts on an irregular basis and as such, we can safely discharge our batteries down to 20% SoC ( 11.58v ) and still get long useable life spans from our batteries.

If you look at the info in the Fullriver doc, you can see they state you will get around 750 cycles down to 20% SoC.

So in a perfect world, if you went out every weekend and cycled your battery down to 20% SoC every time, you would be looking at over 14 years of use.

Problem is, the battery will more than likely die of old age in about half that time.

A reality check, if you were to cycle the battery down to 20% every time you used it, you are more likely to get around 600 cycles, not the clinically achieved 750.

But even if you only got 500 cycles, you are still going to have a battery that is most likely going to die of old age and/or abuse, before cycling down to 20% ever has an effect on the battery.

PLEASE NOTE, these cycle rates are specifically for the Fullriver batteries. You need to get the correct cycle rate info for the brand of battery you are using.