Best 6V AGM Batteries?

[Moira]

Guess what, they are not available in Montana at sam's club

[tderonne]

Sam's battery suppliers have changed over the years, not 100% sure on the East Penn = Duracell, but I think I've read that elsewhere.

But bummer, not available in Montana.

[pasdad1]

Try anyplace that sells golf carts

Here are two locations in Montana

[TQ60]

Montana may be a tough call.

However many places can ship them.

If there is a fastenall store near then the fastenall express is an option.

They ship between stores using their route trucks for good price if not in a hurry.

Lifelines are claimed to be great but do not have them so cannot say.

Northstar are commercial batteries but are garbage as are some others.

For "standard package" the likely common best is the lifelines.

Sears sells an enersys pure leas Agm for automotive use but it is likely starting but could perform as deep cycle.

They are 8 year warranty and are a bit pricey.

Sold by sears so maybe an option but have them provide the data sheet to confirm performance.

[vsheetz]

Originally Posted by Moira

I didn't know that duracell's were made by East Penn. That price sure is tempting. We were going through Glacier anyway and it wouldn't be too far from Great Falls. Thank you.

Bye, What do you mean post to post?

Yes they are all 6vs

Post to post (pedistal to pedistal) methinks means most always in a campground with electric hookups.

[ByeTheWay]

Moira,
Sorry about that.
Its a phrase I picked up from other RVers. Meaning hookup to hookup, like in a park. If you park plugged all the time, you don't need a large battery bank and you have little risk of a deep discharge.

[jackfish]

I have four Fullriver DC220-6 AGMs. Battery Systems in Missoula and Kalispell carry them. I bought mine from Battery Systems in Portland, OR. They are a good company. The Fullriver DC series have a seven year warranty; two years replacement followed by five years prorated. I bought them in June 2013 and have been fulltiming with them since April 2014. They are a competent and cost effective solution.

[Moira]

I started to lean towards the lifeline and try to order them after the weekend. I wonder if I could have them delivered to a post office, general delivery. If I ordered the lifeline, I would probably use power stride. They are showing a 5 to 10 day delivery.

Anyway jackfish has got me re-thinking. the 220 is almost the same model as the dc224. They are almost identical except the 220 is a little bigger I think. I wouldn't have to order them. They probably keep them in stock. It was the warranty that caught my eye. It does have a 7 yr warranty albeit pro-rated...

I also started to think maybe I could just do with some wet cells but the maintenance will be an issue.

I also been reading a lot about the lithium option. There is a lot of talk about them on the escapee forums. Its interesting but I don't know if we are there yet. I don't know if my charger and solar system would be compatible. Maybe I will look into that the next time.

ok, I am getting close. I'll make a decision by Tuesday.

I do appreciate all the suggestions. I have been checking on each lead you have been giving me. The sears, the golf cart etc. I think big sky golf cars only had trojans. Sears didn't carry batteries here at "home stores". But still very helpful to keep me reading and leaving my options wide open.

This is such a big help to me. THANK YOU moira

[vsheetz]

A watering system makes maintenance of wet cells much easier...

[l1v3fr33ord1]

Moira-

I bought my Lifelines through bestconverter.com. Here's a link to the GPL-4CT product page. The batteries ship directly from Lifeline. I received them about a week after I ordered them.

I like the no-maintenance, no-spill aspects of AGMs. It's easier to keep your battery bay/tray clean (although there are several folks on iRV2 that have spotless bays with flooded-cell batteries, by their pictures). I also like to bring my house batteries inside for the winter, and AGMs make transport and charging safer.

Our coach has one set of two batteries. I can see why wet-cell batteries would be a sensible, lower-cost choice for those with large battery banks.

A watering system is a help even with small systems, if the cells are not easily inspected or accessed. In our case, the avoided cost of the watering system went into paying the extra for the AGMs.

[Moira]

UPDATE

Hi all,
Well I decided on getting the Lifeline GPL-4ct. I tried my very best to compare the manufacturers but I learned that because there are no standards to compare battery specs it was useless. In the end I decided on the Lifelines because of their excellent reputation, made in the USA and the warranty. Per their paperwork they have a 1 yr full replacement and 60 month pro-rate. I also called their company and full river and asked both to give me the run down. And the Lifelines were quite a bit different than the full rivers. I got free shipping with power stride.

Now on to the next step. Our battery cables did not fit the new batteries even though they were the exact same size. The battery terminals were further apart. So we are getting those made up tomorrow.

While we wait for that, I googled "Can I equalize east penn batteries?" My inverter manual led me to believe that AGM batteries are not equalized but I found out differently. Some manufacturers do and some don't. Lifeline does recommend it and east penn does not. So no saving those.

While doing that I came across a online book that I tried to find when I was trying to determine how to compare AGM batteries. This is an excellent article on AGMs that you must read.

https://www.morganscloud.com/2010/08...y-test-part-1/

So I learned that now I need a battery amp meter. My SW2512mc Inverter does not provide this information. I really have no idea when the batteries are fully charged. Apparently this is murder one of AGM batteries.

So thats where I am now. In the meantime I checked with Onan and Monaco on the AC Input of Gen Set Amps (menu 11). The default is 30 amps but I will bump it up to 40 amps. This 12.5 kw Generator can produce 104 amps, it has a 50 amp breaker on it. So there is no need to keep it at 30 amps and I am very conservative with the power. I don't turn on the microwave with the ac units going. The specs for the inverter are a little bit harder to understand. They are on page 118 if anyone wants to help me with that.

Also I need to call Lifeline and make sure that my max ac charge is set right. (menu 10) I am estimating that 440 ah / 5 = 88 amps DC, 88/8 (for a 12v system) = 11 amps AC. This formula is on page 66 of the inverter manual. I want to make sure that this formula is proper for 4, 6v batteries. It should be cause they become a 12v system when they are paired together and then hooked up in series-parallel.

So tell me, did you put a battery amp meter in? Which kind did you use? I would like to put mine right next to the gen start in the bedroom over DH's cubby hole. What do you think.

thanks so much all
moira

[l1v3fr33ord1]

Moira-

If you already have a Magnum inverter/charger control system, you should consider the Magnum BMK battery monitor.

If not, I'd recommend the Trimetric 2030A. Read their manuals, reachable by links off the one I just listed; they discuss charging rate settings.

Thanks for the link to the Attainable Adventure Cruising article on AGM batteries. For amusement, education and strong recommendations (including the Trimetric), read HandyBob's Web pages. In my opinion, it's worth reading each article (if for no other reason than to understand why Bob takes the tone he does), but you can start here, here or here.

[steve11669]

No sales tax in Montana. Cool

[TQ60]

Although some manufacturers MAY allow equalizing AGM, don't do it.

That process is basically a high charge rate that "boils off" sulfated plates to make them all better or equal across the battery.

High rates of charge causes the batteries to gas off and the VRLA part of an AGM is the valve that will open at some point releasing gas which cannot be put back.

What kills AGM AND even flooded batteries is float charging that is too high followed by possible too deep of discharge.

These can be confirmed per exact battery by reviewing the data sheet or working with the manufacturer.

In general float charge should NOT EXCEED 0.1% of the labeled site ( 8 hour rate) and minimum voltage of 10.5 VDC for a 12 volt jar.

So a 100 amp hour battery float charge should be near 0.1 amp.

If you do not have an amp meter a volt meter is fine but be sure it is accurate as the HF ones can be off, we had one off by 4% which can mean over charging in float.

The data sheet will specify a fully charged voltage usually totalling near 13.5 volts.

Setting the float charge to this value is usually close enough but confirm what the exact battery prefers and set to that.

We recall lifelines are slightly different than the generic data we provided so confirm before adjusting.