Thread: Deep cycle batteries

I buy mine from hastings deering,,,,they are caterpillar brand,,,,sealed for life,,,6 or 7 year pro rata waranty,,, about $145.00.

I find it worthwhile to pay a bit extra but it is worth it in the long run, no problem starting my 1994 defender, no yearly battery replacement.

Caterpillar makes a off road and car battery size, I use them for 4 years in the defender and rotate it, I tranfer the old one in to my series three until it dies.

Best value in the long term.

I bought a 75 amp/hr deep whatever from the local battery guy - for $150.00 with warranty - didn't have to worry about postage

Nice and easy. Seems to do the trick for running the fridge, plus a couple of lights on an overnight (like last night) - I went to supercheap and bought one of their battery boxes with cut-out, test button and cig socket - it's strapped down in the back of the car - and can easily be removed.

I know absolutely bugger all about batteries - just went with what the chap at the store told me and gut feeling.

One point I overlooked. At no time did I infer that Bellaposs was a weekend warrior or that he was wrong in posting the info about using a hydrometer or multi meter to measure the batteries.

Quite the opposite is the case.

I regularly instruct customers, who ask me if there is a simple method for checking their batteries, on how to use a multi meter to get a fairly good idea of state of their batteries BUT I also point out that there is as much as a 5% margin of error and instruct them to only use this method as a means of keeping an eye on the battery’s condition, not as an exact science.

For anybody wishing to learn a bit about anything to do with automotive type batteries, the link below will take you to what is probably the world’s most popular automotive battery info site.

http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/

Cheers

Come on Drivesafe, Play the ball not the man.
Once again my responses and I will gladly back up all statements with technical data.

Drivesafe: Zwitter, I have only come across a few people who go to such lengths and twist facts as much as you do, but they are usually just trying to sell some piece of crap and need to go to such lengths in a desperate attempt to get a sale.
I think you are the only one pushing a product. And I gave it the thumbs up for certain applications. Becareful of the use of "facts" it goes into the 100% basket. I can provide compelling arguements fto support or both sides of any topic (just to be obtuse) but would never call them facts just statements based on hypothesis apparently confirmed by experimental observations.

Drivesafe: What's your excuse. For replying
The pursuit of a better product, saving money,

Drivesafe: Stop charging the battery so it won’t over heat, as many people have the second battery under the bonnet, so you don’t worry about the heat coming from the engine or do you turn that off too.
Yes, But I did say control or turn the charge current off. The heat of the environment alone will not cause the decombination of the chemicals in the cells causing excessive gassing, just a small liquid loss if it gets really hot. Charging in these situations can destroy the battery chemically if not physically. Lead wet batteries can handle the heat better due to the larger volume of electrolite and the ease with which it can be replenished I would not put GEL/AGM/VRLA in that environment for that reason

You had a go at Tombraider for supposedly getting off subject and you have done nothing but get off subject and worst still twist everything to suite your own story.
No I was not "Having a go" at anyone, Just questioning the relevence of guns to anything else in this thread. If Tombraider considers himself in anyway victimised or hurt bu my comments then i appologise to him un reservedly. I do not see where the twist occured in that reference to guns?

drivesafe: As for the 20 amp converters, your statement proves beyond any shadow of a doubt just how little you know about batteries and charging them.
In primary school I was taught the technique of unsubstantiated statements without any supportive arguement to score points against the opposition. In the real world we have laws governing defamation and slander. I will assume you are a proffessional person and you should be well aware of such statements in a public forum. If you would like to back this statement with some technical statements backed by a credible and experimentaly repeatable data then I welcome you to do so. That is how the world advances.

Drivesafe: As for the rest of your rubbish, I’ll leave it to others to decide what's what.
Now that is a poor statement to make. I think we can all make up our own minds with out such unnecessary generalisations.


Defenderzook: as far as i know......if an inverter ran to chassis earth on a vehicle it will overload the output and blow a fuse........
Thanks for the support. but it depends how it was wired up as to wether it will shut down. Most portable inverters float the output. Ie it is electrically isolated from the input and the ground. So if only one side of the output made contact with the chassis it would be undesirable but only harmful if the other side of the output was exposed and connection made with both terminals. larger generator and inverter setups would have a referenced output but by law have a core balance or earth leakage circuit breaker that would trip befire it would kill you.

Drivesafe: Except if the earth is through you.
See above. the Earth is not involved in this scenario as described.

And your last post seems to be something of a correction if not a retraction!

Loanrangie There is no way to know the history of these batteries. They are designed as UPS standby battery and have no warranty. At $99 the guy probably buys them by the pallet load so gets a really good price. He may even be recouping his capital after using them for a year. One needs to ask why if they are in such "good" condition is he selling them.
If you do buy one i would be happy to transport it south for you.

I bought some simmilar ones on epay and used them for testing and only one seemed to charge propperly under controlled conditions. but the price tempted me enough.

James

re: those now infamous batteries at question.
My opinion is and would be the same as if my mate asked the same question is DONT TOUCH THEM !
as pointed out they are OLD, NO WARRANTY, designed as a stationary (UPS)battery, not an automotive battery, they work best with a charging system designed for them and MOST vehicles dont charge them correctly and also the underbonnet temps will affect its charging characteristics.
( In QLD we sell more batteries in summer than in winter because of the heat ) soooooooooo for the money as previously mentioned up yonder go get a NEW battery with warranty!
A good place to get answers on batteries is http://www.batteryweb.com
Also if your looking for a good battery tester, I personally use one of these http://www.midtronics.com/products_c...ers&recordID=6 they are light and portable and give a very good idea on your batteries condition. Cheers all.... Brad

Hi bellaposs, I haven’t seen that test meter before, looks interesting.

Any idea of the price, plus the literature gives no indication of the accuracy.

Cheers.

Zwitter, I didn’t both responding to you because I doubt that you would have taken any notice, but for the benefit of anybody else interested in getting independent conformation of just how wrong you were, I posted the link to the battery site in Europe.

Just for your benefit here’s some math for you.

The amount of current that is needed to charge batteries varies greatly between different types, so this is a generalisation but will still show how useless a 20 amp converter is.

Again, these are very crude figures and in real life, a number of consideration would need to be met, like the size of the alternator, but this goes close to what will take place.

At 14 volts, a standard 100 A/H wet cell or gel cell battery, which are the slowest type of batteries to charge, when discharged to around 40% SoC can draw as much as 35 amps during the initial bulk charging cycle and in the case of these types of batteries, the battery NOT the charging device, controls the amount of current being needed to recharge the battery. It would be about 2 hours before the 20 converter could match the charging level of just simply connecting the battery to the vehicles alternator.

If the vehicle’s charging voltage is 14.5 volts then the battery’s bulk charge time would be even quicker when just connecting to the alternator.

At the other end of the spectrum, if the battery was something like an Odyssey which, using the manufacture's own recommended charging data, can take 80% of the of the battery’s full capacity during charging and as these batteries can be taken down to 20% SoC, a 100A/H Odyssey will take a little over an hour to get the bulk of the charge back in to it when connected to an alternator working at 14 volts while the 20 amp converter will take nearly 4 hour to achieve the same level of charge.

After the bulk of the charge is returned to the battery, all types of batteries will then take a long period of time to fully charge, no matter what means of charging is used.

So for hi tech batteries like the Odyssey and the Hawker and any battery of 100 A/H or greater, a 20 amp converter is useless and a 50 amp converter would be needed to make any real difference in charging time.

BTW, I design and manufacture control equipment for a number of companies fitting 50 and 100 amp converters for RV and industrial use, so I have a fair idea as to what will and won’t work, based on first hand experience, so I can assure you, for anything but the smallest batteries, 20 amp converters are not much better than toys.

Midtronics testers are used by Supercharge Batteries and Century Batteries and were brought to our attention by when we were associated with ACDelco as they used them in America. These testers are very accurate but not perfect. We have found that the most accurate means of testing is by use of a hydrometer in conjuction with a carbon pile 1000 amp load tester. We use the Midtronics for processing waranty claims ( mainly the sealed types ) , they let the odd one slip through that isnt faulty and vise versa but when in doubt we test it the the carbon pile but generally they are very good. Some models like the PBT300 can perform a simple test on your alternator and starter motor and for the non trades person it gives an idea on the condition of these items by means of a red light for faulty and green for good. It has a LED display that tells you the cca of the battery and the voltage, it will also display bad cell if one is detected.On the battery testing side of things LED's light up indicating when the battery is good, low or in need of charge. This tester is simple and sells for around $400. Please note Im not trying to sell these testers in this forum, I do NOT sell testers, this information is offered to anyone looking for a good tester with a bit of experience of its workings thrown in for free