|
|
06-28-2010, 11:30 PM
|
#15
|
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Auburn, CA, Havasu, AZ & Mulege, BCS
Posts: 5,385
|
Wet cell batteries w/mineral oil float to minimize the acid blow-by from gassing, or AGM.
The Optima blue is a good battery, but as noted its form factor is likely not going to get you a lot of amp hours in the OEM battery space. You can add additional blue tops and string them together if you can find the space in or near the battery compartment. And of course w/any AGM type, you'll need a fat wad of sweaty money to blow on the luxury of zero mess/maintenance.
__________________
Baja-tested '08 2-slide 36'
Alpine: The Ultimate DIY'er Project
|
|
|
|
Join the #1 RV Forum Today - It's Totally Free!
iRV2.com RV Community - Are you about to start a new improvement on your RV or need some help with some maintenance? Do you need advice on what products to buy? Or maybe you can give others some advice? No matter where you fit in you'll find that iRV2 is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with other RV owners, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create an RV blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
|
06-29-2010, 02:19 AM
|
#16
|
Senior Member
Winnebago Owners Club Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 2,976
|
i like my 2 lifeline 6v agm batteries. 300ah capacity fit in the same space as the 2 original 12v 190ah batteries. i got them from bd batteries online. at least shipping is included in their high prices.
__________________
01 WINNEBAGO 35U W20.8.1L 5sp allison SW Wa,. Good Sam, SKP. RVM 198 AMSOIL fluids. BANKS ecm program. SCAN GAUGE II w/ Ally temp. 2 LIFELINE GPL-6CT AGM Batts on their sides. Michelins, TST tptts. K&N panel air filter. AERO mufflers. TAYLOR plug wires. ULTRA POWER track bar. KONI fsd shocks, toad '21MB GLA FWD on dolly
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 08:59 AM
|
#17
|
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 632
|
Forget the mineral oil and other 'old school' stuff. Modern batteries with proper charging equipment should not suffer blowing electrolyte. If you are having problems, fix the system. Don't use band aids.
You can also see a good example of the kinds of confusion that gets created with the 6v agm's example. 390 AH at 6v is 2340 watt hours. 190 AH at 12v is 2280 watt hours. This is about a 2% difference in energy capacity. Compare that to the kind of difference you get from temperature, age, cycle to cycle variation, and use profiles. Each of them can provide more than 10% variability. You can also find variances like that between batteries in a manufacturers line (the T105 vs T145 for instance).
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 10:13 AM
|
#18
|
Senior Member
Newmar Owners Club
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,589
|
BryanL,
I take exception to your post. You say Forget the mineral oil and the other 'old school' stuff. Time has proven to be the best filter to separate fact from fiction. Mineral oil in batteries go back to Thomas Edison and the hayday of the railroad. It has proven to prevent water loss and mitigate parasitic battery discharge and extend the time between when the battery needs water. It has also prevented battery compartment corrosion. It is simple to add and very inexpensive. In my opinion adding mineral oil in your battery is the next best thing to a sealed battery but much less expensive.
There is a difference between a battery boiling and one that is bubbling. During charging bubbling prevents stratification of the electrolyte allowing the battery to achieve a more complete charge. Bubbling will cause the loss of electrolyte and the mineral oil keeps this loss to a minimum.
You appear to be adding to the confusion about batteries. You state that 390 AH at 6v is 2340 watt hours, however I don't know of any RV that operates off a 6 volt system, so the proper comparison is 390 AH * 12 = 4680 watt hours and 190 AH * 12 = 2280. When two 6 volt batteries are wired in series the voltage adds and the batteries current capacity remains the same and when two 12 volt batteries are wired in parallel the batteries current capacities add and the voltage remains the same. As you can see there is more than a 10% variance between the two battery banks, in fact the variance is more than doubled.
__________________
2007 Newmar DSDP 4023
Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.
If you want to see what man made go East; if you want to see what God made go West.
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 10:29 AM
|
#19
|
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Auburn, CA, Havasu, AZ & Mulege, BCS
Posts: 5,385
|
RJ- although Bryan is uninformed about mineral oil, his calculation on battery comparison is technically correct if somebody is shopping. His numbers are not consistent w/Dan's contribution, which talked about replacing two 190AH batteries w/two batteries of 190AH @ 12V (although Dan's write up may have added confusion).
Dan- I'm guessing you had two standard profile 12V batteries at 95AH each, adding to 190AH @ 12V, and replaced that w/two tall 6V batteries at 300AH which add to 12V @ 300AH. The 6V-300AH is a tall (~13") battery box whose footprint is about the same as a group 27 more or less, so if you have extra head room, you can get more watts stored in the same square footage.
If my assumptions are correct, you get 300AH x 12V = 3600watt-hours of storage,
vs. 190AH x 12V = 2280watt-hours of storage.
The tall batteries are a nice solution, and given the zero mess/maintenance (well, close to zero), you can more easily live without the headroom access as there is no battery water to check/adjust/clean at the battery tops, thus accommodating the taller battery boxes.
__________________
Baja-tested '08 2-slide 36'
Alpine: The Ultimate DIY'er Project
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 12:57 PM
|
#20
|
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 632
|
You are welcome to disagree but I think calling me "uniformed" or taking exception is, I think, stepping over the line.
As for the 6v confusion, the point is illustrated. I took the information provided, not what I would have to assume or infer. I do know that all lead acid batteries have about the same energy densities and that filling a space in your RV with 6v or 12v batteries will yield an energy capacity that is related to how big the space is and not the batteries within it. I also know that the issue is not "current capacities" but rather energy capacity. That is why the proper units for measuring battery bank capacity is watt hour and not amp hour.
I always recommend RVers compare watt hours when looking at batteries. That avoids bank component voltage confusion as well as provides a measure that is much easier to relate to how electrical energy use is measured in general.
As for the mineral oil hack - you can find more about this baloney at various places on the web. I did qualify my comments as relating to modern batteries and equipment and my own experience supports my comments. There are good theoretical reasons as well. If you are blowing acid all over your battery compartment or are suffering battery electrolyte loss requiring frequent refills then you need to look at your charging and maintenance. Band aids, such as mineral oil, are not going to help take care of the fundamental problem and that means you will suffer a shorter battery life than you should.
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 04:03 PM
|
#21
|
Senior Member
Newmar Owners Club
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 4,589
|
Hi Mike,
There was no confusion on my part when I read Dan L's post the first time or when I went back and read it a second time. Some people come to these forums to learn and share ideas and some to troll.
__________________
2007 Newmar DSDP 4023
Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.
If you want to see what man made go East; if you want to see what God made go West.
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 06:43 PM
|
#22
|
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 632
|
re: " Some people come to these forums to learn and share ideas and some to troll."
oh my, we are getting a number of messages that are loaded and tend towards persons rather than the subject. Trolling tends to be messages intended to inflame. Messages about others does this.
May I suggest that comments about the character, knowledge, intent or other characteristics of persons be avoided?
There are a number of topics here that are worth discussing. The 6v vs 12v measures often cause difficulties. There is a thread at NASW that illustrates a much more civil approach to the mineral oil myth than is evident here. Reliable, repeatable, and useful measures of battery performance are another topic that many have trouble with.
Of course, it is easier to castigate those with whom you disagree and to cast around aspersions about nasty behavior and such things. I just don't think such things are in line with the intents and purposes of these forums.
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 07:48 PM
|
#23
|
Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Litchfield Park, Arizona
Posts: 10,530
|
A year ago I decided that AGM was just too expensive for my application and instead went with advice from this forum and tried the MAX deep cycle batteries from Walmart. So far they have held up VERY well.
__________________
Rick, Nancy, Peanut & Lola our Westie Dogs & Bailey the Sheltie.
2007 Itasca Ellipse 40FD
|
|
|
06-29-2010, 11:18 PM
|
#24
|
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 13
|
We recently got some Interstate Deep-Cycle Marine/RV batteries 12volt. This is the best our RV has ever acted. It manages power perfectly. When it had 6 volt batteries, it dropped the inverter and acted erratically. The dealer blew up our batteries two winters in a row, and they kept putting the wrong batteries in to replace them. (once they put in 2 6 volts in series, and the next winter they put in one 6 volt and one 12 volt in series) They had our rig in for long term repairs, and they kept leaving the battery bypass on. In Alaska, that is death to batteries. Anyway, they first put in 6 volts in series. That worked, but did not keep charge for as long as expected. The original batteries in our coach were 2 Interstate in parallel. So, we decided to take matters in our own hands and found 30 month warranty Interstate Marine/RV 12 volts. In the 3 years we have owned our coach, it has never performed so well. It is amazing what the right batteries (the ones the coach was designed for) will do for your converter and inverter.
__________________
Coachmen Pathfinder 384 TS 40 footer "Supermassive Black Hole"
2 parakeets, 1 canary, Buckie the pug, Sissie the doxie, and a cheewawa named Hope.
|
|
|
06-30-2010, 02:54 AM
|
#25
|
Moderator Emeritus
Country Coach Owners Club Appalachian Campers Gulf Streamers Club
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Chattanooga, Tn.
Posts: 12,060
|
I am officially warning that there will be no tolerance for the flaming I see being posted. This will stop and it will stop now. If I see another post violation of our "Terms of Service" agreement, I or another moderator will lock down this thread and the violator will be reprimanded. I and many others have studied many subjects and no one knows it all (except teenagers). I wish I could go into more detail at times but my time is limited so I post links of information for the questioner to go to and research for answers. Please help us all out by not flaming one another; or else face the consequences.
__________________
Mike, RVIA & RVSA Certified Master RV Technician
Amy, Dr. Assistant - Roxie & Mei Ling, four legs each
2000 Gulf Stream Scenic Cruiser 450 hp & 1330# torque
06 Saturn Vue, 06 Chevy Z71 4x4 & 2014 Corvette Z51 M7
|
|
|
06-30-2010, 03:47 AM
|
#26
|
Senior Member
Winnebago Owners Club Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 2,976
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by EngineerMike
RJ- although Bryan is uninformed about mineral oil, his calculation on battery comparison is technically correct if somebody is shopping. His numbers are not consistent w/Dan's contribution, which talked about replacing two 190AH batteries w/two batteries of 190AH @ 12V (although Dan's write up may have added confusion).
Dan- I'm guessing you had two standard profile 12V batteries at 95AH each, adding to 190AH @ 12V, and replaced that w/two tall 6V batteries at 300AH which add to 12V @ 300AH. The 6V-300AH is a tall (~13") battery box whose footprint is about the same as a group 27 more or less, so if you have extra head room, you can get more watts stored in the same square footage.
If my assumptions are correct, you get 300AH x 12V = 3600watt-hours of storage,
vs. 190AH x 12V = 2280watt-hours of storage.
The tall batteries are a nice solution, and given the zero mess/maintenance (well, close to zero), you can more easily live without the headroom access as there is no battery water to check/adjust/clean at the battery tops, thus accommodating the taller battery boxes.
|
the first part of your post is confusing to me.
the second part is correct.
my original batteries, 2ea 12v deka marine batteries in parallel had about 190 ah capacity. (95 each).
my 2ea 6v lifeline agm batteries in series have 300 ah capacity. this is a huge increase in capacity, (about 36%). it was kinda pricey, but worth it to me. i don't ever have to add water either. there is no corrosion. lifeline agm's last longer too.
i try not to deep cycle them, for even longer life.
my tall lifelines lay on their sides (see my sig block). they fit in the same space as the 2 original 12v batteries.
see pics.
__________________
01 WINNEBAGO 35U W20.8.1L 5sp allison SW Wa,. Good Sam, SKP. RVM 198 AMSOIL fluids. BANKS ecm program. SCAN GAUGE II w/ Ally temp. 2 LIFELINE GPL-6CT AGM Batts on their sides. Michelins, TST tptts. K&N panel air filter. AERO mufflers. TAYLOR plug wires. ULTRA POWER track bar. KONI fsd shocks, toad '21MB GLA FWD on dolly
|
|
|
07-02-2010, 06:05 PM
|
#27
|
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 7
|
Thanks
Thanks every one for your input I realy like interstate batts. but I think i am going to try the Costco batts because I am cheap I will keep you all posted on their perf. I'm shure I will be back to ask more ?'s
Thanks again,
jplrace and crew
|
|
|
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|
|
Thread Tools |
Search this Thread |
|
|
Display Modes |
Linear Mode
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
» Recent Discussions |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|