Lazy Daze Owners' Group

new AGM batteries for Tortuga

May 09, 2006, 03:45:32 am

Yahoo Message Number: 66513

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On our way south today, we stopped in Azusa and bought 2 Lifeline 6v AGM batteries.  We went to the main office and warehouse for Lifeline http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/index.htm and they sold them to us for $175ea and we got new ones, with an April 06 date.
 Our previous T105's were bought in Tucson in Nov 04 but when we looked at the date stamp on them it was Aug 03 so they were a year old when we bought them.   I don't know why but they were bulging and that's not a good sign.
That's why we decided to replace them.  I had thought maybe we got remanufactured ones in Tucson but the guy in Azusa says that batteries can't be remanufactured.  We take very good care of our batteries, checking the water often and they have never been taken down below 50%.
 I wanted AGM's because they can be charged faster and discharged a little farther.  The no maintenance part is just a plus.  They are also more impervious to bouncing and rough roads which we certainly go down a lot when we are in California.   I did a little research and the Lifeline are the highest rated AGM's with less internal resistance and more available power than other AGMs.  They are made by Concorde, which has a good rep in all types of AGM batts.
 Their insurance doesn't allow them to install so Mimi installed them in the parking lot.  They were very nice and we got a lot of free advice, they lifted them into the battery tray and hauled away our old ones.  We weren't at all sure on how to do it so we disconnected the ground wires from the converter and flipped all the circuit breakers after we got the old batteries out.  We still had a reading of 14.2v on the Solar Boost and power to the converter (our fan was still running after the batteries were disconnected!) until we pulled the fuse for the solar panels.  Getting all those ground wires back in was difficult.  We attached the crossover and positive wires on the new batteries and then reattached the converter and then attached the neg cable on the batts.  I'm not sure all that was necessary, maybe just taking the fuse out of the solar panels would have been enough.  Everything seems to be working great, I reprogrammed our Xantrex Battery Status Monitor and it registered them full after a few minutes running the generator.
 Every time I reprogram the Battery Monitor I learn a little more - or a little more sticks in my brain - and I'm actually thinking I understand it now.  One thing that I had to figure out is whether the engine alternator went through the converter, it doesn't from what I read.  So, I may have to change the way I programmed the monitor as I don't know that the alternator/voltage regulator will ever hit 14.4v into the batteries.  Does anyone know the answer to that?  I have the monitor set to register the batts as fully charged when the voltage reaches 14.4v and the amps drop to 11 or below.  If the alternator never gets to 14.4 then on days we charge the batteries by driving the monitor will not see them as charged.  The way it works, it will see them as full (and show the percentage used from there) but it won't zero out the amp hour counter, that only happens when the 2 settings are met.  The amp hour counter is one of my favorite parts to this monitor, it tells me how many amp hours I've used since it last zeroed out as full.  So, it's important to get that part right.  Any advice?
 I've got some pics of my old bulging T105s and the new AGMs.  I'll upload them and post a URL in a minute.

-- Jonna in Tortuga, 2001 Teal RB Find us MAPhttp://map.datastormusers.com/user2.cfm?user=1013> Follow the BLOG herehttp://www.baddog.com/blog/blog.html>

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Re: new AGM batteries for Tortuga

Reply #2 – May 09, 2006, 12:20:22 pm

Yahoo Message Number: 66529

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Congrats on your new batteries, Jonna! I love my AGMs. You didn't mention whether you adjusted your solar controller and your converter to lower charging voltages, but that's important to do. AGMs do *not* like being overcharged, and they require lower voltages than flooded-cell batteries like your old T-105s. Check with Concorde for the specs, but my recollection is that 14.2V is about as high as you can safely go. Wouldn't want to see you cook those expensive new AGMs!

Andy Baird

City of Rocks State Park, NM