Gel Agm Batteries

[jon]

Hi all I’m looking to buy a deep cycle gel agm battery for an up coming trip. It’s to be placed in an Engel series 2 battery box. Purely for running fridge camp lights etc. I’m after one in the 110-140 ah rating I’ve been doing a heap of research and have found a lot of the batteries labelled as 135 or 140 are really actually rated to 110ah. If any one on here has any recommendations on deep cycle agm batteries let me know cheers in advance

[Ed.]

The only AGM batteries I have ever used are the Giant Power brand from Aussie Batteries  up at Warana Qld. They don't seem too bad, and I only buy them on special which they do fairly often. I have used the 135A and the 150A ones. The 150A is a big battery and weighs about 41Kg, (150.0 AH/7.50A, 20hr,1.80V/cell,25°C) The last time I checked the 150A was upgraded to become a 160A. Whether or not they are better than other brands I couldn't say as I have only bought a couple over the last 8 years or so. They have a 1 year replacement warranty and another 4 years pro-rata.

[jon]

5 hours ago, Ed. said:

The only AGM batteries I have ever used are the Giant Power brand from Aussie Batteries  up at Warana Qld. They don't seem too bad, and I only buy them on special which they do fairly often. I have used the 135A and the 150A ones. The 150A is a big battery and weighs about 41Kg, (150.0 AH/7.50A, 20hr,1.80V/cell,25°C) The last time I checked the 150A was upgraded to become a 160A. Whether or not they are better than other brands I couldn't say as I have only bought a couple over the last 8 years or so. They have a 1 year replacement warranty and another 4 years pro-rata.

Yeah I was this close to buying one as they now do a 140 which I can get for $267. Until I came across a fair amount of rubbish reviews about quality and no help with the warranties. Problem is I don’t know if it is for this particular model or not.

[jon]

How long did you get out of your batteries In General?

[Nog]

I've got a pair of 92Ah (K20 rated) Banner AGMs from Battery Value here in Brissy.  Nice specs on them, they do go higher Ah but don't seem to be in stock. Peter is a good guy to deal with and he might have other batteries to fit your need

 

[benno573]

1 hour ago, Nog said:

I've got a pair of 92Ah (K20 rated) Banner AGMs from Battery Value here in Brissy.  Nice specs on them, they do go higher Ah but don't seem to be in stock. Peter is a good guy to deal with and he might have other batteries to fit your need

 

I'll second this one.  Peter has a range of items in stock - i have a 125AH I got from him 3 years ago for a simlar purpose (80L engel, lights, shower etc), still going great, last Friday I picked up a new house battery for the outlaws caravan from him as well - 110AH for $235 - can't go wrong.  Very easy to deal with guy, very knowledgable on batteries in general. And the prices are completely reasonable as well.

My last camping battery lasted me 6 years - would have been longer but had a failure on a camping trip with solar input and the voltage dropped to 9.9V - pretty hard to recover from there.

also - i think aussie batteries on the sunny coast went into administration (i.e. belly up) a while ago - could be the issue behind the warranties.

[jon]

Cheers Benno And Nog I’ll give him a call and see what he’s got that’s a good price for a 110ah. I looked a bit further the owner of Aussie batteries has had six different companies in a few years and all have gone bust then pop up again under a new name.

 

[Ed.]

5 hours ago, jon said:

How long did you get out of your batteries In General?

Jon, if your question was directed at me, the 150A one I sold with my last boat and it was still going strong and at least 5 years old, the 135A was about 4 years old when I had a problem, turned out it wasn't  being charged up enough, so had it put on a decent charger and so after a decent charge it is now still going strong.

benno573,  the company is still advertising so don't know about the belly up thing. As for rubbish reviews every product on the market will have rubbish reviews and rarely do you see enough good ones to judge them  but how many bad ones are out there will sway someone away from that brand. For me I can only go by my limited experience with that brand and the few I have had is no guarantee of their quality or if they are a problem. Too small a sample size.

A bit like my Jeep, after the first one which was a bit of a lemon I had to think very hard about getting another Jeep, but the second one has been the best car I have ever had. So at 50% excellent and 50% total rubbish.

[Ed.]

3 minutes ago, jon said:

Cheers Benno And Nog I’ll give him a call and see what he’s got that’s a good price for a 110ah. I looked a bit further the owner of Aussie batteries has had six different companies in a few years and all have gone bust then pop up again under a new name.

 

As far as I know Aussie batteries has still been trading under it's name for about 9 years that I know of, but if the owner has other businesses that have had name changes then that is not a good sign at all!

[jon]

15 minutes ago, Ed. said:

As far as I know Aussie batteries has still been trading under it's name for about 9 years that I know of, but if the owner has other businesses that have had name changes then that is not a good sign at all!

Thanks mate I appreciate your input. 

[benno573]

18 hours ago, Ed. said:

benno573,  the company is still advertising so don't know about the belly up thing. 

hey mate,

just fact checked myself here.  

Company was placed into adminstration 24/3/2020.  they continued trading under administration, then entered into a deed of company arrangement.  the DOCA fininshed 20/8/2020 and the company was returned to the control of the directors.

so they did go into administration but were able to trade out of it.

@jon - IMO worth spending a few extra $$ to get a few more AH if you can - just one less thing to think about while you are out and about.

[Ed.]

Thanks Benno573, at least they are still going, but still a bit of concern what jon said regarding the owners other different trading businesses being reborn under different names if that happened.

Although my last battery from them has now expired from warranty and the last battery I bought recently was from BCF  (Century 780) so not an issue any more for me although if I was to buy another Deep Cycle I most likely would still get one from them again.

[jon]

53 minutes ago, benno573 said:

hey mate,

just fact checked myself here.  

Company was placed into adminstration 24/3/2020.  they continued trading under administration, then entered into a deed of company arrangement.  the DOCA fininshed 20/8/2020 and the company was returned to the control of the directors.

so they did go into administration but were able to trade out of it.

@jon - IMO worth spending a few extra $$ to get a few more AH if you can - just one less thing to think about while you are out and about.

Yeah cheers mate the current director of that company has a string of lawsuits against him in regards to warranty claims amongst other things. Not worth risking on the odd chance I get a lemon from the get go.

your right about the extra Ah. it’s no point skimping once I’ve already spent heaps on the box. The plan is to put the maximum ah that will physically fit in the box

180w x 330l x 238h.

ive been told buy a few solar/battery experts that any thing under 0.3kg per Ah is false advertising. Ie a 135 Ah battery should weigh just over 40kg. And 110 ah about 33 kg so anything that is multiple kg’s less than is probably less than what they claim it to be. Does anyone out there agree or disagree with using the 0.3kg equation as guide to measure Ah of agm batteries.                   ( obviously casing quality will differ the weight but shouldn’t be say buy a couple of kgs. Is what ive been told)

Edited September 28, 2020 by jon

[benno573]

4 hours ago, jon said:

ive been told buy a few solar/battery experts that any thing under 0.3kg per Ah is false advertising. Ie a 135 Ah battery should weigh just over 40kg. And 110 ah about 33 kg so anything that is multiple kg’s less than is probably less than what they claim it to be. Does anyone out there agree or disagree with using the 0.3kg equation as guide to measure Ah of agm batteries.                   ( obviously casing quality will differ the weight but shouldn’t be say buy a couple of kgs. Is what ive been told)

this is roughly correct for AGM batteries.  my 125AH is about 38kg.  the badged 110aH i got from Peter @ Battery Value on Friday I think weighs in at 32kg so just a smidge under the 0.3/AH.

[jon]

3 minutes ago, benno573 said:

this is roughly correct for AGM batteries.  my 125AH is about 38kg.  the badged 110aH i got from Peter @ Battery Value on Friday I think weighs in at 32kg so just a smidge under the 0.3/AH.

Yeah sweet. I rang him about the 125 but the only issue is he can’t get one for four weeks and hopefully I’ll be going to Fraser next week so I’ll keep looking. I’ve found a few reasonably priced similar sizes though

[Ed.]

28 minutes ago, benno573 said:

this is roughly correct for AGM batteries.  my 125AH is about 38kg.  the badged 110aH i got from Peter @ Battery Value on Friday I think weighs in at 32kg so just a smidge under the 0.3/AH.

What brand is your 125AH battery?

[jon]

1 hour ago, Ed. said:

What brand is your 125AH battery?

If it’s the ones I spoke to the guy about it’s an NPP

[jon]

Unfortunately after all my research I’m struggling to find a true 125 or 135 that will fit in side the Engel box as it’s internals will only accommodate 330L x 180w X 238H. I have found many labelled as 135 but the weight calcs brings them down to around 110 ish.

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

On 29/09/2020 at 4:37 PM, jon said:

Unfortunately after all my research I’m struggling to find a true 125 or 135 that will fit in side the Engel box as it’s internals will only accommodate 330L x 180w X 238H. I have found many labelled as 135 but the weight calcs brings them down to around 110 ish.

That's a shame jon. Good luck with finding the one you want  

Cheers Hamish

[jon]

Thanks I’m gonna go with the one that @benno573 suggested. Seems pretty good for the price.

[Old Scaley]

So here is a question for the battery nerds. I have a 110ah agm battery that just powers the sounder/gps unit and occasionally the bilge pump. I don’t have a lot of knowledge of batteries but I think I am doing the right thing by putting the batteries (one for the sounder and a separate one for the electric motor) on charge after each use. I use a good 9 stage charger. So, question number 1 is am I doing the right thing?

Next question. When I was playing around with sounder settings a few days ago, I decided to turn on the low voltage alarm. The default was 11.2 volts and I am a default kind of guy so I left it at that. Now, normally when I have the sounder working the voltage on the unit reads around the 11.6 or 11.7 mark. Yesterday I had forgotten to charge that battery before we went out and when I switched it on the low voltage alarm sounded and the unit said there was 11.2 volts. I turned it off and only used it sparingly through the day. The run out to Mud charged it up to 11.5, but it did drop again from use when the motor wasn’t running.  When I got home I put the multimeter on it and it read 12.39 volts. I put the charger on and it also read 12.39. I left it on slow charge but when I checked a couple hours later it was fully charged, whereas it would normally be overnight if it had had a decent run.

The battery is less than a year old, the terminals are spotless, the connections are tight so my question is what do you think might be happening? So I think the battery is fine. Am I losing power somewhere or should I just set the voltage alarm a bit lower? At what voltage am I likely to damage either the sounder or the battery?

[Angry51]

If it's only running the sounder I'd set the alarm about 10.5.

Most trucks cut off at 10 or they used to, newer tech might have changed that.

[Ed.]

Those voltages don't sound right to me, on my current and also previous boats when the engine was running the voltage was 14V and dropped to about 12.6-12.8V  when it wasn't. The GPS/Sounder should use very little amperage as they usually only have a 3A fuse on them and that is probably way more than it actually requires. Depending on the size of  bilge pump, if it is about the 500G/H size it  also only uses about 2.5A. If the voltage was 12.39V and a couple of hours later on the charger at your home went up to a full charge, so either you have a very big charger or something else doesn't sound right. The electric trolling motor will drain the battery a lot though so best to have it on separate battery/batteries. If using one battery for all and if  the trolling motor drains the battery then it can't start your main motor then that is a problem.

Take it to someone who can do a battery drain check,  deep cycle or AGM batteries are a little bit different to flooded cell batteries, I once had one that read 13V at rest and supposedly fully charged till I put a small load on it and it went down to 3V within 5 sec. so charged it up again, repeated and the same result.

Yesterday I ordered another battery charger as I can't find one of the ones I had (the Projecta 8A ) and I  have a suspicion that I left it behind on my last trip at the rental property when we went up to 1770, anyway this new one will put out between 2A and 12A. It shouldn't hurt to charge up the batteries after each trip, especially the trolling motor battery.

I would be concerned if my AGM batteries went down to 11V as that would mean a good percentage of my charge was used up.