Your rectal thermometer will be a good way to tell when your fancy,
expensive AGM battery goes to its death. When Batteries Plus pointed their
thermal imager at mine, today, in my stepvan, it read 170F! The other AGM
in parallel with it was only 94F in the hot engine compartment. The bad
AGM killed the good AGM over the weekend. I think the good AGM is going to
survive, at least until I get feeling better about replacing the bad AGM
for $90 (with $35 rebate on the bad AGM).

I guess I should feel relieved it just bulged all out instead of exploding
in my engine compartment in a big, acid mess.....(sigh)....

Larry

Larry,
How old was that AGM? The Optima line has pretty good full replacement
warranties.
Len

--
Eliminate "ns" for email address.
"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Your rectal thermometer will be a good way to tell when your fancy,
expensive AGM battery goes to its death. When Batteries Plus pointed
their
thermal imager at mine, today, in my stepvan, it read 170F! The other AGM
in parallel with it was only 94F in the hot engine compartment. The bad
AGM killed the good AGM over the weekend. I think the good AGM is going
to
survive, at least until I get feeling better about replacing the bad AGM
for $90 (with $35 rebate on the bad AGM).

I guess I should feel relieved it just bulged all out instead of exploding
in my engine compartment in a big, acid mess.....(sigh)....

Larry

On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 22:45:40 -0000, Larry W4CSC
wrote:
The bad
AGM killed the good AGM over the weekend.

======================================

Parallel batts have the potential for that kind of mischief and worse,
of course. Ideally the parallel strap should have a fuse in it but no
one, including myself, ever seems to get around to it. Why AGMs in a
van? I'd go with 2 golf carts in series.

"Len Krauss" wrote in news:HKGdnb92w7L4x1vdRVn-
:

Larry,
How old was that AGM? The Optima line has pretty good full replacement
warranties.
Len


Just under 3 years. 2 year replacement warranty. I got $35 towards a new
one which cost me $90 "in the end", so to speak. No appreciable current
between new one and the other old one that I recharged. Mother and baby
seem OK, now.

Optima isn't perfect....by a long shot. The other battery has an open
circuit between the + post and side terminal. Must be cracked. I just
changed the truck's connection to the post.

Larry

(What I wanted to do was replace them both with two 6V 1200CCA in series to
get rid of the paralleling batteries, which I hate. But, the replacement
cost would have been prohibitive. This was cheaper..)

Wayne.B wrote in
:

On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 22:45:40 -0000, Larry W4CSC
wrote:
The bad
AGM killed the good AGM over the weekend.

======================================

Parallel batts have the potential for that kind of mischief and worse,
of course. Ideally the parallel strap should have a fuse in it but no
one, including myself, ever seems to get around to it. Why AGMs in a
van? I'd go with 2 golf carts in series.



The house batteries are two 330AH golf carts in series through a
continuous-duty 200A solenoid which is tied into the keyswitch power to
hook the house batteries to the engine batteries for charging on-the-road
from the 120A alternator. Power is our friend...(c;

GM choses to parallel batteries, permanently, in all the diesel light
trucks (and cars before they got such a bad name with the converted 5.7 V-8
gas conversion.) The US Air Force only uses Optima AGM batteries in ALL
their light vehicles, now, "to reduce maintenance", they say. It's
probably more like the government bureaucrats propping up the AGM business
and the CAUSE of the awful prices for such a simple battery. The gummit is
also the problem in the drug market, you know.....the reason prices are so
high.

I got no room for two golf carts in the battery compartments under the
hood. The house batteries are in the driver's footwell in a custom box a
friend made in his woodshop.

Larry