Community Forums

wa8yxm · 12-13-2011, 05:58 PM

Regarding battery types: I personally believe AGM is a total waste of money for that application.. It will likely fail SOONER as opposed to a Maintenance Free (Like the OEM). I'm not at all impressed with AGM.. I might add my opinion on the life of AGM batteries v/s Maintenance free or flooded wet cells (Which are not the best choice where they buried it) is based on 2 things.. Research and experience.

On battery manufacturer web pages I found the expected life of the different batteries expressed as number of recharge cycles.. Maintenance Free, PER the makers, should last longer.

Experience: I have several batteries in this motor home.. The starting battery is 6 1/2, well within it's expected life (Should have a few more left knock wood) and is still doing it's job, Last time I had to clean the terminals I load tested it and .. Well strong GREEN result.

Flooded wet cells (GC-2 (Actually Intersteate U-2200) ) still going strong as well, They are also OEM, they have, however, been abused (Run down way below 50 percent) a few times.. I've been a tad late with the distilled water bottle a time or two.. they are showing signs of age, but still doing the job.

Other "Liquid" type batteires (Maintenance free and flooded wet cell) that are older than the RV.. ONE (The very oldest) has failed, one is seriously degraded, but still useful, NOTE these are both OLDER than the RV, quite a bit older in fact.

Two AGM's (MK Group 31's) .. paperweights. Fail load test at 5 amps load (Should take over 350 amp load to test.. Did when they were new, now fail at .. Well if the amp meter moves the battery fails)

I replaced one last month, other one will go this Saturday.

NOTE these AGM's are on the Inverter, it cuts off if the batteries get too low so they have NOT been abused like the U-2200's have.

DriVer · 12-13-2011, 08:51 PM

If you run equipment that will desulphate your batteries they will last for a long time.

dieselclacker · 12-14-2011, 09:20 AM

Starting with good quality batteries, life span length is all about how you use, charge, maintain and store your batteries. Just my opinion, YMMV.

Dieselclacker

DriVer · 12-14-2011, 03:47 PM

On the automotive side I run a maintenance free, Group 78, lead acid type Interstate (green) battery.

When that eventually dies, I'll replace it with the same size and type battery however I may switch manufacturer depending on what I have in front of me at the time that I like.

Since I am plugged into shore power 24/7 I run a Model 12248 BatteryMINDer. I wrote a couple of articles about the setup. Batteries will last a long time if they are properly charged and de-sulfated.

Assured Automotive Power - BatteryMINDer Model 12248