True Deep Cycle batteries

Anything electric, AC or DC

Postby Arne » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:02 am

Mike, is your solar panel attached permanently to the roof?

And watt (little joke) physical and electrical size is it?
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Postby shil » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:23 am

Chris,

What are you running that you've got to worry about recharging during your trip? We've got a DC only teardrop with a couple of reading lights, a cabin light, a stereo, and a small inverter for charging the cell phone and digicam. Our deep-cycle battery's good for two weeks, no worries. I just charge it when we get home.
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Postby Chris C » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:46 am

REALLY? Two weeks, Shil? Wow! I don't think I'd be running much more than you do. Just assumed I wouldn't be able to get a full week out of one. Never had the opportunity to find out before. Thanks for the info. Guess maybe I can strike that worry from my list and just try it out until I can get a real feel for how long it lasts. What kind of battery are you using.............i.e. total amp hours, brand, etc.?
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Postby shil » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:53 pm

Chris,

I use a big group 27 deep-cycle battery that I picked up on sale at Canadian Tire for about $80 CDN. It's a 'Nautilus', their house brand. It works just fine.

Last year's Big Trip was to the Canadian Maritimes, about 7,000 kilometres in two weeks. By the time we got home the battery was getting low, but by no means spent. I change it with a simple, manual charger until a hygrometer tells me it's good to go again.

You can see pictures of both the battery and the trip at my Yahoo Photos page

Good Luck!

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Postby mikeschn » Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:58 pm

arnereil wrote:Mike, is your solar panel attached permanently to the roof?

And watt (little joke) physical and electrical size is it?


I had planned on permanently mounting it to the roof... but I ordered some mounting angles, and the place never filled the order. I guess it wasn't a big enough order. That's okay, I didn't pay him yet either!!!

Mike...
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Postby DestinDave » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:11 pm

Maybe someone can answer this for me. If I install two group 27 batteries rated at 105AH each I end up with 210AH total. Is that really 210AH usage before the battery is down to where it needs to be charged?
I'm only going to run DC lights, TV/DVD/CD, fan, and cell phone charger.
If I truly have 210 AmpHours that sounds like overkill to me and I could get by nicely with one battery. :roll:
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Postby PaulC » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:42 pm

Having just done all the calculations to run two interior halogen lamps, radio/cd/mp3 player, two exterior LED lights, vent fan and engel fridge, 85A.H. deepcycle Remco is expected to last about 12 days before requiring recharge. My calcs are based on maximum usage of:
Fridge- 8-9 hours per day(switched off at bedtime)
all lights to a maximum of 2 hours
radio for 3-4 hours
vent fan - maybe
I also have a back up second deep cycle optima battery fitted to my vehicle thru a smart solenoid if things happen to go arm up.

P.S. Am about two weeks away from completion. Will try to post some photos then
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Postby madjack » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:03 am

DestinDave wrote:If I truly have 210 AmpHours that sounds like overkill to me and I could get by nicely with one battery. :roll:


...agreed.
With the load you have shown, you should be able to do a long weekend with no problems
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Postby bdosborn » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:14 am

DestinDave wrote:Maybe someone can answer this for me. If I install two group 27 batteries rated at 105AH each I end up with 210AH total. Is that really 210AH usage before the battery is down to where it needs to be charged?
I'm only going to run DC lights, TV/DVD/CD, fan, and cell phone charger.
If I truly have 210 AmpHours that sounds like overkill to me and I could get by nicely with one battery. :roll:

Dave,

You really have 105AH of usable capacity. It kills batteries to discharge them more than 50% of capacity.
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Postby GeorgeTelford » Tue Sep 20, 2005 3:30 am

Hi

You should not regularly take your batteries below 50% if you want them to last. So then you have a 105 ah

But depending how you charge your battery it may not start at 100% Charged, if you charge via an alternator the battery will only charge somewhere between 65 and 70%, so in effect you may have only started with 136 ah, take away the 50% (105 ah) you should not be using and now you only have 21 ah to play with.

If you use a standard onboard leisure charger (convertor in US?) then the situation is very similar, we have a similar type in UK doing discharge tests, I found that if you leave the on board charger running for 4 weeks constant with no draining loads it gets to about 90% charged. Use the onboard charger overnight after a trip and you get about 70% (from 50% discharged start)

The above is why I have a Smart regulator to make the alternator operate as a 4 stage charger, this ensures the leisure batteries get fully charged very rapidly when driving, and a 30 Amp marine charger/power supply for when hooked up.

Incidently if you fully charge a leisure battery and then drive with the battery connected to the vehicle alternator, you will lose charge until battery gets down to 65-70%

Here are the notes I made of an experiment a year or so back


from fully charged at 12.93v (measured 12 hours after coming off the Sterling charger) connected bulb, it took 6 hours and 17 mins to reach 12.2v (ie flicking over backwards and forwards from 12.3v)

It was then fully recharged on the Sterling, allowed 13 hours to settle the voltage, reading was 12.94v flash 12.93v, the engine on the iveco was started, then I connected the battery using a good solid cable as before and drove this morning for 1 hour 14 mins, as soon as I got back it was connected to the same bulb (55w halogen) connected at 12 : 12 today, it started flashing between 12.3 and 12.2 at 5 : 37 PM today

Same battery, same full charge by Sterling, only difference 1 hour 14 mins of extra "charging" as knocked off 52 mins off usable power !!
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