On Mar 22, 1:27 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On 22 Mar 2007 09:50:20 -0700, "

wrote:
With this understanding, I am certain that I
will buy AGM batteries (instead of flood batteries) to take advantage
of the fact that I will not need to pull them out from the boat every
winter to refill water (like what we need to do for flood batteries).

Batteries that are kept fully charged will not freeze so there is no
need to pull them from the boat. AGMs and gel cells require special
charging precautions that I prefer not to deal with, not to mention
the additional expense. The best $$$ value for trolling batteries (or
any other deep discharge application) is 6 volt golf cart batteries
wired in series to yield the proper voltage. Approximately $50 each
at Sam's club, years of reliable service.

Actually, I was referring to pulling out the flood batteries in order
to examine the water level, and also for refilling the water. In my
boat, the batteries compactment has a tiny access door. If I need to
check the water level of the batteries without pulling out the
batteries, I will have to have half of my body inside the battery
compactment, and my face will be dangerously close to the acidic water
in the batteries. I really don't want to do this. But pulling the
batteries from that tiny battery compactment is really a struggle.
That is the reason why I am looking for AGM batteries that I don't
need to check the water level, and I can leave them inside the battery
compactment without doing that annual exercise of pulling them out and
putting them back.

I have another alternative to the use of AGM batteries to solve this
problem. I can relocate the batteries to under the deck with a large
access door right on top of the batteries. But I don't want to
greatly change the boat layout just yet. If charging AGM batteries is
really difficult, I may have to stick with flood batteries, and I will
have to relocate the batteries.

The idea of using 6-volt batteries is interesting. But I am afraid
that the total weight of batteries will be much higher than using 12-
volt batteries, and I really want to keep the weight down. If I had a
bigger boat, I probably would take your advice.

Jay Chan