Interesting lead crystals in St Pierre's troopy

After spending quite a bit of time last night with Mr Google, I am not as excited about Lead Crystal as I was yesterday.
It seems that the major advantages of LC are that they can stand repeated cycles of full charge to zero charge vs a lead acid which dies very quickly under that treatment. There are some good tests on Utube and this feature seems to be real and well documented.

HOWEVER most fridges which we mainly use on deep cycle batteries cut off at 10.5 volts or higher and in fact my Engel will not operate the compressor under 10.5 volts so the 10.5 volts to zero area is useless to me.
One contributor envisioned that he could have a smaller solar battery pack if they could be fully discharged into his inverter and there were cloudy days , but this also depended on the inverter having a low cutoff point, and the amps load would be large at low voltages.

Their price seems to negate their advantages, as most people would not keep a battery for their proposed life anyway, they weigh the same as Lead Acid and are the same package size.

It appears to me that their main advantage would be in solar installations or where someone is quite insensitive to battery care and lets their battery run down. As a semi amusing aside I recently helped a bloke who had fried an Optima Yellow top , because his voltage meter which was in his CB radio had been attached to his main battery rather than his house battery as instructed . His Traxide had dutifully cut off at 12 volts and he thought that he had 12 volts in his house battery but it had died and he wondered why his fridge had cut out. In his case an LC battery would have saved him the cost of a battery.
Regards Philip A

Hi Phillip and while the Lead Crystal batteries can be cycled to 0v, their cycle rates are based on the standard SoC of cycling down to 0% SoC, which is 10.5v, not 0v.


Betta Batteries needs to make this point a little clear in their documentation.


I am still testing these batteries but I have never bother taking them below 10.5v for the very reason you mentioned.


Most 12v appliances, not just fridges, are only rated down to 10.5v, because this is the limit at which a standard lead acid battery will no longer proved any power.

BTW, I am currently discharge/charge cycling one of their 6-CNFJ-70, 70Ah batteries and on each C20 cycle down to 10.5v ( SoC = 0% ), the battery has continually provided 80+ amperes ( 80 amp hours ) of usable energy.

This makes their 70Ah batteries equivalent to a 100Ah AGM, but with a much high number of cycles than an AGM.

Hi Ozscott and while I originally was not going to comment on the video link, but others may think that system is the best way to set up that or any other vehicle.


First off, the solar panel and 40 amp DC/DC unit would retail for around $1,000. But for around a similar cost they could have supplied a far better system with better charging results.


The Toyota has a 120A alternator with a very basic variable voltage operation and runs at around 13.6v to 13.8v normally, but instead of spending a fortune on that DC/DC device, they could spent just $50 and install an Alternator Voltage Booster Fuse, from HKB Electronics in Melbourne, ( www.hkbelect.com ) and this would raise the vehicle’s normal operating voltage up to 14.2v to 14.4v, which is the perfect charging voltage for any lead acid battery and idea for the Lead Crystal batteries.


Note, the addition of the fuse would not only improve the charging of the two Lead Crystal batteries but would maintain the cranking battery in a better state of charge, something DC/DC devices can not do.


Next, again instead of the DC/DC device, they could have just fitted a standard VSR isolator.


I have been testing that exact same battery, a 6-CNFJ-70 Lead Crystal battery and I first discharged the fully charged battery down to 0% SoC ( 10.5v ) and was able to draw 83Ah of usable energy from the battery.


Charging at 14.0v, with the battery at 0% SoC ( 10.5v ), the battery initially started the charge cycle drawing 53 amps, tapering off to 6.4 amps after 3 hours and absorbing 78 amperes ( amp hours ). That puts the battery at around 90% SoC


By using a standard VSR isolator, the two batteries would be charged faster than the DC/DC device could ever achieve. For example, those two batteries could be easily drawing 70+ amps ( 35+ amps per battery ) while charging, if they were in a low state of charge at the start of a drive.


The only limiting factor to even higher charging currents is the size of the alternator and the accessories that are being powered at the same time the charging is being done.


With the cheaper setup, he could have his two batteries up 95+% in around 4 hours, while the 40 DC/DC device would take close to 5 hours to achieve the same level of charge. Furthermore he could do away with that ridiculous need the separate the fridge from the battery while driving. This would simplify his setup and it’s operation.


With his current setup, the poor guy has to switch the fridge from direct alternator supply while driving, to battery supply when camped, other wise, the DC/DC’s charging capability will be reduced while charging the two batteries.


Next, because of the amount of power required to run his fridges plus other devices, while camped, that single 115w solar panel is next to useless. The company has simply fitted a DC/DC unit and single Solar Panel package system, but if they had wanted to give the guy a decent chance of maintaining his system while camped, they should have fitted at least two of those ( or cheaper equivalent sized ) panels and three would have been better still.


With the setup he now has, while he is driving, even though both alternator and solar are fed into the DC/DC device, it will only ever supply a maximum of 40 amps to charge the batteries.


If instead of fitting the DC/DC device and using it as the solar regulator, they could have fitted a separate solar regulator and then he could have been recharging his two batteries from the alternator and the solar panels at the same time, and with two 115w panels, he could have been adding an additional 10 amps of charging capacity to his setup while driving.


This alternative type of setup would have allowed him to recharge his two batteries from a low state in about a third less drive time than the setup he now has.

Sorry Ozscott, while all that fancy gadgety sounds good, it actually falls a long way short of what an optimum system could be, and a far better system would cost only a little more than what his current setup costs.

Thanks Drive safe. I agree he should have got more than one panel. I value your comments despite my liking of Red Arc gear and my own DC2DC set up.

Cheers

I dunno how he writes all that tech stuff before 7 in the morning,, good coffee?

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Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

I dunno how he writes all that tech stuff before 7 in the morning,, good coffee?

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It's called insomnia!

How does the weight of lead crystals compare to AGM or lead acid

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Originally Posted by weeds

How does the weight of lead crystals compare to AGM or lead acid

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H Weeds, it’s a bit difficult to do an outright comparison based on Ah size.


For example, their 6-CNFJ-100, one of their 100Ah batteries, at 31.5kg, is lightly higher in weight than a standard 100Ah AGM, but if you use their 6-CNFJ-100 as a deep cycle battery like you would use an AGM ( not discharging it below 20% SoC ) it is actually equal to a 110Ah AGM, so the weight is comparable to the same Ah sized AGM.


But also as pointed out earlier in this thread, depending on how you intend to use these batteries, their 6-CNFJ-70 is equal to a standard 100Ah AGM, so this is lighter and smaller than a 100Ah AGM for the same usable amount of Ah.


Lead Crystal batteries are dearer, INITIALLY, but as they are likely to give twice the life span of a similar sized AGM, they will work out much cheaper, in the long run.

Some great info here.... thanks for that :)

I've often wondered about the DC/DC chargers as that's pretty much what everyone is pushing these days.... But in our touring vehicle, I've got a smaller AUX battery (Optima AGM yellowtop) with a VSR isolater and I'm running the Voltage Booster Diode as well, and our system has been working quite well. We don't get much capacity out of the Optima due to its size, but it seems to recover and be nearly fully charged in what seems to be only a few hours. This is much quicker than my old setup with a normal Deep Cycle LA battery....

The time span to fully charge these Lead Crystal batteries off your ALT - roughly how long from 10.5v to fully charged?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Ozscott and while I originally was not going to comment on the video link, but others may think that system is the best way to set up that or any other vehicle.


First off, the solar panel and 40 amp DC/DC unit would retail for around $1,000. But for around a similar cost they could have supplied a far better system with better charging results.


The Toyota has a 120A alternator with a very basic variable voltage operation and runs at around 13.6v to 13.8v normally, but instead of spending a fortune on that DC/DC device, they could spent just $50 and install an Alternator Voltage Booster Fuse, from HKB Electronics in Melbourne, ( www.hkbelect.com ) and this would raise the vehicle’s normal operating voltage up to 14.2v to 14.4v, which is the perfect charging voltage for any lead acid battery and idea for the Lead Crystal batteries.


Note, the addition of the fuse would not only improve the charging of the two Lead Crystal batteries but would maintain the cranking battery in a better state of charge, something DC/DC devices can not do.


Next, again instead of the DC/DC device, they could have just fitted a standard VSR isolator.


I have been testing that exact same battery, a 6-CNFJ-70 Lead Crystal battery and I first discharged the fully charged battery down to 0% SoC ( 10.5v ) and was able to draw 83Ah of usable energy from the battery.


Charging at 14.0v, with the battery at 0% SoC ( 10.5v ), the battery initially started the charge cycle drawing 53 amps, tapering off to 6.4 amps after 3 hours and absorbing 78 amperes ( amp hours ). That puts the battery at around 90% SoC


By using a standard VSR isolator, the two batteries would be charged faster than the DC/DC device could ever achieve. For example, those two batteries could be easily drawing 70+ amps ( 35+ amps per battery ) while charging, if they were in a low state of charge at the start of a drive.


The only limiting factor to even higher charging currents is the size of the alternator and the accessories that are being powered at the same time the charging is being done.


With the cheaper setup, he could have his two batteries up 95+% in around 4 hours, while the 40 DC/DC device would take close to 5 hours to achieve the same level of charge. Furthermore he could do away with that ridiculous need the separate the fridge from the battery while driving. This would simplify his setup and it’s operation.


With his current setup, the poor guy has to switch the fridge from direct alternator supply while driving, to battery supply when camped, other wise, the DC/DC’s charging capability will be reduced while charging the two batteries.


Next, because of the amount of power required to run his fridges plus other devices, while camped, that single 115w solar panel is next to useless. The company has simply fitted a DC/DC unit and single Solar Panel package system, but if they had wanted to give the guy a decent chance of maintaining his system while camped, they should have fitted at least two of those ( or cheaper equivalent sized ) panels and three would have been better still.


With the setup he now has, while he is driving, even though both alternator and solar are fed into the DC/DC device, it will only ever supply a maximum of 40 amps to charge the batteries.


If instead of fitting the DC/DC device and using it as the solar regulator, they could have fitted a separate solar regulator and then he could have been recharging his two batteries from the alternator and the solar panels at the same time, and with two 115w panels, he could have been adding an additional 10 amps of charging capacity to his setup while driving.


This alternative type of setup would have allowed him to recharge his two batteries from a low state in about a third less drive time than the setup he now has.

Sorry Ozscott, while all that fancy gadgety sounds good, it actually falls a long way short of what an optimum system could be, and a far better system would cost only a little more than what his current setup costs.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robmacca

The time span to fully charge these Lead Crystal batteries off your ALT - roughly how long from 10.5v to fully charged?

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Hi Rob, can you post up details of your planned setup?