Golf Cart batteries
 

On my trawler my present house battery bank consists of two 8Ds, my
starting battery is a 4D.

The 8Ds are ready for replacement. I'd like to go with golf cart
batteries.

Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.

Several sites on the Internet have Trojan golf cart batteries, and there
are many choices, for prices that look like $200 and up.

I have a lot to learn about batteries. I don't have enough information,
yet, to compare what I'm seeing.

Then there's the issue of a new "Smart" charger. My 20 year old charger
probably needs to be upgraded with the batteries.

Your input would be appreciated.

Jim

Golf Cart batteries
 

"Jim" wrote in message
ink.net...
On my trawler my present house battery bank consists of two 8Ds, my
starting battery is a 4D.

The 8Ds are ready for replacement. I'd like to go with golf cart
batteries.

Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.

Several sites on the Internet have Trojan golf cart batteries, and there
are many choices, for prices that look like $200 and up.

I have a lot to learn about batteries. I don't have enough information,
yet, to compare what I'm seeing.

Then there's the issue of a new "Smart" charger. My 20 year old charger
probably needs to be upgraded with the batteries.

Your input would be appreciated.

Jim

Here's a great link that should answer all of your questions...

http://www.vonwentzel.net/Battery/index.html

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

Golf Cart batteries
 

Jim wrote:
On my trawler my present house battery bank consists of two 8Ds, my
starting battery is a 4D.

The 8Ds are ready for replacement. I'd like to go with golf cart
batteries.

Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.

Several sites on the Internet have Trojan golf cart batteries, and there
are many choices, for prices that look like $200 and up.

I have a lot to learn about batteries. I don't have enough information,
yet, to compare what I'm seeing.

Then there's the issue of a new "Smart" charger. My 20 year old charger
probably needs to be upgraded with the batteries.

Your input would be appreciated.

Jim

Don't know who makes the Cosco batteries but the West Marine Type GC2 6
volt batteries are T-105's made by Trojan. You can usually get them
cheaper at the Trojan dealer.
krj

Golf Cart batteries
 

Hi, Jim,

Jim wrote:
On my trawler my present house battery bank consists of two 8Ds, my
starting battery is a 4D.

The 8Ds are ready for replacement. I'd like to go with golf cart
batteries.

Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.

Several sites on the Internet have Trojan golf cart batteries, and there
are many choices, for prices that look like $200 and up.

I have a lot to learn about batteries. I don't have enough information,
yet, to compare what I'm seeing.

Then there's the issue of a new "Smart" charger. My 20 year old charger
probably needs to be upgraded with the batteries.

Your input would be appreciated.

If you can hoist 8Ds, you can hoist L16 (different flavors ranging from
375-425AH). Essentially the same footprint as golf cart, but lift
cart/floor polisher, etc., batteries, they're twice as tall.

My 4 are in a box I had fabricated; with my solar and wind generation,
providing relatively constant charging (vs the usual taper-off of
alternators, never quite reaching full charge) I expect I'll rarely
discharge very far. With pulse technology, I expect I'll get even more
life than well maintained batteries would have otherwise provided.

My preference - if I had lots of square footage available to me (vs
height), I might have gone to golf carts, as generally they're cheapest
per AH and common as dirt.

L8R

Skip

Golf Cart batteries
 

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:00:08 GMT, Jim wrote:

Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.

Sam's Club usually has them for about $50 each plus a $5 core charge
if you do not have an old battery (any type) to give them. Dollar for
dollar these are the cheapest batteries you can get unless you have a
wholesale source. I've got 8 of Sam's batts on my trawler.

Golf Cart batteries
 

On 6 Jul 2006 16:08:44 -0700, "Skip Gundlach"
wrote:

My preference - if I had lots of square footage available to me (vs
height), I might have gone to golf carts, as generally they're cheapest
per AH and common as dirt.

Absolutely right.

Skip, where are you in your "get away" plan ?

Golf Cart batteries
 

Wayne.B wrote:

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:00:08 GMT, Jim wrote:


Costco has them for $62 each. No real information on the card in the
store. West marine has them for $127. There is not enough information in
either place to compare them to each other.


Sam's Club usually has them for about $50 each plus a $5 core charge
if you do not have an old battery (any type) to give them. Dollar for
dollar these are the cheapest batteries you can get unless you have a
wholesale source. I've got 8 of Sam's batts on my trawler.

What is the amp rating on your batteries?

I've learned there's three levels of batteries. And lots of different
prices.

Golf Cart batteries
 

On Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:24:30 GMT, Jim wrote:

Sam's Club usually has them for about $50 each plus a $5 core charge
if you do not have an old battery (any type) to give them. Dollar for
dollar these are the cheapest batteries you can get unless you have a
wholesale source. I've got 8 of Sam's batts on my trawler.

What is the amp rating on your batteries?

I've learned there's three levels of batteries. And lots of different
prices.

I believe they are rated at 220 Amp-Hours, 20 amp rate. Mine have
been going strong for over a year which includes about 7 months of
liveaboard cruising while powering a large inverter.

One of the best things about 6 volt golf cart batts other than cost
effectiveness is ease of replacement. They weigh less than 60 lbs
each, much easier than horsing an 8D on and off the boat and into
position.

Rolls, Surette and Trojan all make good batteries but you will pay a
lot more for them. If I were cruising around the world and could not
get replacements along the way, that is what I'd be using.

Golf Cart batteries
 

We have been using golf cart batteries for five years from Walmart. I
believe they are made by Penn and have proven to be very durable. I gotta
believe they are the best bang for the buck on the market.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Jim wrote in news:Y4drg.4079$ye3.3854
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Costco has them for $62 each

225 AH, 6V at a 20 hour discharge rate. It's on the sticker on the side.

Being taller, make sure you have the space over them so you can fill them
during maintenance, comfortably. AS the floorspace footprint is much
smaller, if you have the vertical space, you might be able to fit 4 or
even
6 of them into the space the 8Ds came out of. 2 or 3 parallel banks is a
lot of power at amazing amperages when needed, without overheading the
one-
house-battery. One or two marine battery switches to isolate and separate
them, in case you lose one cell, allows you to run the rest until the bad
cell can be replaced....redundant. Just parallel them all on BOTH when
the
charger is on them, distributing its current to slowly charge them all.

$62 is a bargain. Being for rough service in golf carts that may roll
over, mine don't leak a drop if inverted.

Figure out what your maximum current the cabling can stand and put a heavy
battery fuse in between each pair in the jumper. Mine have a 250A fuse
using #2 cables. They crank a 6.2L V-8 diesel easily without that fuse
even getting warm.

If the battery charger didn't boil out the electrolyte overcharging and
had
enough capacity to reach 1.270 specific gravity, why screw around buying
some electronic gadget with more failure modes and unproven reliability.
Old battery chargers charging the same old lead-acid batteries that has
worked for 20 years will do so another 20 years. Is there a downside in
here somewhere??

Golf Cart batteries
 

Larry wrote:

Jim wrote in news:Y4drg.4079$ye3.3854
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:


Costco has them for $62 each


225 AH, 6V at a 20 hour discharge rate. It's on the sticker on the side.

Being taller, make sure you have the space over them so you can fill them
during maintenance, comfortably. AS the floorspace footprint is much
smaller, if you have the vertical space, you might be able to fit 4 or even
6 of them into the space the 8Ds came out of. 2 or 3 parallel banks is a
lot of power at amazing amperages when needed, without overheading the one-
house-battery. One or two marine battery switches to isolate and separate
them, in case you lose one cell, allows you to run the rest until the bad
cell can be replaced....redundant. Just parallel them all on BOTH when the
charger is on them, distributing its current to slowly charge them all.

$62 is a bargain. Being for rough service in golf carts that may roll
over, mine don't leak a drop if inverted.

Figure out what your maximum current the cabling can stand and put a heavy
battery fuse in between each pair in the jumper. Mine have a 250A fuse
using #2 cables. They crank a 6.2L V-8 diesel easily without that fuse
even getting warm.

If the battery charger didn't boil out the electrolyte overcharging and had
enough capacity to reach 1.270 specific gravity, why screw around buying
some electronic gadget with more failure modes and unproven reliability.
Old battery chargers charging the same old lead-acid batteries that has
worked for 20 years will do so another 20 years. Is there a downside in
here somewhere??


My 20 year old "Pro Mariner" charger does overcharge and boil the batteries.

A modern 3 stage charger might be a good investment.

Golf Cart batteries
 

Hi, Wayne, and group,

Rather than hijack this thread, see my separate post "Skip and Lydia's
Excellent Adventure Update" posted some time soon :{))

L8R

Skip and Lydia, shortly to be of no fixed address, no itinerary, no
schedule

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
http://tinyurl.com/p7rb4 - NOTE:new URL! The vessel as Tehamana, as we
bought her

"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely
nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing,
messing-about-in-boats; messing about in boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter,
that's the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never
get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to
do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

Golf Cart batteries
 

Jim wrote in
.net:

My 20 year old "Pro Mariner" charger does overcharge and boil the
batteries.

A modern 3 stage charger might be a good investment.


Yes...that's a good idea.

Golf Cart batteries
 

Wayne.B wrote in
:

I believe they are rated at 220 Amp-Hours, 20 amp rate.

Does it say 20 Amps or 20 hour rate??

20 hours would be 11 amps, right?

Way too many boaters believe it'll put out 220A for 1 hour....

It won't.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

A day of learning:

Two 6 volt, 220 amp batteries joined to make one 12 volt battery has 220
amps. Even though the guy at the battery store told me otherwise.

My old 8Ds had a rating of 215 amps. 220/215, not much gain there.

The cost of the 6 volt batteries is about 1/2 the cost of an 8D. A
little more or a little less. $65 + $65 = $130. 8D, $140. Not much
gain there.

What this means is that there is little gained, initially, by going with
the golf cart batteries. Since I have to buy battery boxes, it will
cost me more.

The golf cart batteries SHOULD be good for many more deep discharges
than the 8D. The golf cart batteries are easier to move around, and
have a smaller foot print. The battery boxes have more options for
dimensions.

I'm buying the golf cart batteries from a battery store. A few dollars
higher than Costco. Five dollars each battery. I get the cables free
from the battery store, so it's actually cheaper than Costco.

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the batteries.

The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote in
ink.net:

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the
batteries.



The batteries only need 20A, so that leaves you with 20A of load current
while the charger is on.

The battery store guy should know better. 220 ampere-hours has nothing
to do with 220 amps. Ampere-Hour is a measure of the stored energy in
the battery. The "rating" only holds true for ONE load, the load that
drains it in 20 hours (that's about standard in the battery biz). 11
amps will drain it in 20 hours, so that would be the "standard load" for
this battery. The slower you discharge it, the more ampere-hours of
energy it will produce, way beyond its rating. The FASTER you discharge
it, more than 11 amps, the LESS its ampere-hour capacity is at that load.
This is caused by chemistry and physics. The chemistry is the speed at
which the acid can eat away at the soft lead plate's surface area.
Quickly discharging it with a heavy load, the acid by the plate is
quickly consumed into lead sulphate ions in suspension, blocking more
acid from attacking the plate surface. So, it's not some incredible
limit. Starting batteries overcome this problem with an incredible
number of plates producing an incredible surface area that can produce an
incredible instantaneous current.....but for a price. To keep the
physical battery size, the plates have to be very thin. Their amp-hour
rating is actually very low, as anyone who has been cranking a dead motor
for a few minutes when the lights go out can attest. Deep discharge
batteries use thick plates with lots of lead to eat and much more acid to
eat them....at a slower rate, 20 hours standard. At 50A, and I'm only
guessing as I don't have a chart in front of me but you can find them on
the net, the AH rating of the 220 AH battery is probably about half,
maybe a little more. Well, you get the picture. It's not a bottomless
pit of power, actually kind of small for its weight.

Nice charger, but you'll only see 40A charging them for a few minutes
before the charge quickly tapers off to a safe charging level below 20A.
If you never discharge them below specific gravity of 1.125, they'll last
a long time.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote in news:ANErg.4757$ye3.3213
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.



Darn....Where do you live? I might try to get it! The 40A heavy duty
charger in my stepvan that charges the house batteries from my Honda 3KW
inverter-genset is the original OEM charger from my friend's Amel Sharki
French ketch. It's one of the finest battery chargers I ever had, but you
must regulate it manually through its 3 steps...low, medium and bigtime...
(c;

That old charger is a great battery charger IF you take the time to TIME
its charging. It's just a rotten float charger for a boat.....

The one under my desk rarely drops off past 20A, charging the 1930's
vintage Edison Nickel-Iron-Potassium Hydroxide telephone cells under the
house. That's the "house house batteries" here in hurricane country.

POWER is REALLY our friend when the powerlines all lay in the street!

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Larry wrote:
Jim wrote in
ink.net:


I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the
batteries.




The batteries only need 20A, so that leaves you with 20A of load current
while the charger is on.


The specs call for the 20 to charge a bank 100 to 400 amps. the 40
calls for 400 +

I will have 440. I know it's ONLY 105 over . . .my thinking is to buy
the right one the first time.
The battery store guy should know better.

He said two 6v 220 amp batteries will give 12v, 440 amps.

220 ampere-hours has nothing
to do with 220 amps. Ampere-Hour is a measure of the stored energy in
the battery. The "rating" only holds true for ONE load, the load that
drains it in 20 hours (that's about standard in the battery biz). 11
amps will drain it in 20 hours, so that would be the "standard load" for
this battery. The slower you discharge it, the more ampere-hours of
energy it will produce, way beyond its rating. The FASTER you discharge
it, more than 11 amps, the LESS its ampere-hour capacity is at that load.
This is caused by chemistry and physics. The chemistry is the speed at
which the acid can eat away at the soft lead plate's surface area.
Quickly discharging it with a heavy load, the acid by the plate is
quickly consumed into lead sulphate ions in suspension, blocking more
acid from attacking the plate surface. So, it's not some incredible
limit. Starting batteries overcome this problem with an incredible
number of plates producing an incredible surface area that can produce an
incredible instantaneous current.....but for a price. To keep the
physical battery size, the plates have to be very thin. Their amp-hour
rating is actually very low, as anyone who has been cranking a dead motor
for a few minutes when the lights go out can attest. Deep discharge
batteries use thick plates with lots of lead to eat and much more acid to
eat them....at a slower rate, 20 hours standard. At 50A, and I'm only
guessing as I don't have a chart in front of me but you can find them on
the net, the AH rating of the 220 AH battery is probably about half,
maybe a little more. Well, you get the picture. It's not a bottomless
pit of power, actually kind of small for its weight.

Nice charger, but you'll only see 40A charging them for a few minutes
before the charge quickly tapers off to a safe charging level below 20A.
If you never discharge them below specific gravity of 1.125, they'll last
a long time.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Larry wrote:
. . .
Nice charger, but you'll only see 40A charging them for a few minutes
before the charge quickly tapers off to a safe charging level below 20A.

Hmm. Assuming 2 6v Trojan T-105s or equivalent (or an 8D), 220ah
capacity, discharged 50%, a 40 amp charge rate is only 20% of the
bank's capacity, quite safe. The bank probably won't even get warm.
If you're in a hurry, charging at a 40% rate, 80 amps (typical
alternator output), would shorten the life of the bank slightly, and
warm things up a bit, but still would be a "safe" charging rate.

A 40 amp charger should put out 40 amps for two hours or so, before the
rising voltage causes the charger to start tapering off (70%-80%
charged) down ultimately to 5 to 10 amps or so ( 2% to 5% of bank
capacity, depending on age and battery design), where it should stay
for a half hour or so (14.4 volts, Trojan says 14.8!), to gas the
batteries for a while to mix the electrolyte thoroughly and bring the
bank up those last few amp-hours to full charge. This is *not* an
equalization charge. Then you can either turn the charger off, or, if
it's smart, it'll drop back to a float charge, 13.2 volts or so, so you
can run stuff without discharging the bank.

OTOH, if you're hooked up to shore power and have all night to charge,
there's nothing wrong with charging at 10% of the bank's capacity (20
amps or so), which will prolong the bank's service life slightly. But
there's nothing *unsafe* about an initial 40 amp (20% of capacity)
charge rate on a discharged bank.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote:
A day of learning:

Two 6 volt, 220 amp batteries joined to make one 12 volt battery has 220
amps. Even though the guy at the battery store told me otherwise.

My old 8Ds had a rating of 215 amps. 220/215, not much gain there.

The cost of the 6 volt batteries is about 1/2 the cost of an 8D. A
little more or a little less. $65 + $65 = $130. 8D, $140. Not much
gain there.

What this means is that there is little gained, initially, by going with
the golf cart batteries. Since I have to buy battery boxes, it will
cost me more.

The golf cart batteries SHOULD be good for many more deep discharges
than the 8D. The golf cart batteries are easier to move around, and
have a smaller foot print. The battery boxes have more options for
dimensions.

I'm buying the golf cart batteries from a battery store. A few dollars
higher than Costco. Five dollars each battery. I get the cables free
from the battery store, so it's actually cheaper than Costco.

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the batteries.

The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.


Just curious. How many years did you get
from your old 8Ds and your old charger?

How many more years do you expect to get
from the golf carts and a new charger?

Chuck

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

chuck wrote:
Jim wrote:

A day of learning:

Two 6 volt, 220 amp batteries joined to make one 12 volt battery has
220 amps. Even though the guy at the battery store told me otherwise.

My old 8Ds had a rating of 215 amps. 220/215, not much gain there.

The cost of the 6 volt batteries is about 1/2 the cost of an 8D. A
little more or a little less. $65 + $65 = $130. 8D, $140. Not much
gain there.

What this means is that there is little gained, initially, by going
with the golf cart batteries. Since I have to buy battery boxes, it
will cost me more.

The golf cart batteries SHOULD be good for many more deep discharges
than the 8D. The golf cart batteries are easier to move around, and
have a smaller foot print. The battery boxes have more options for
dimensions.

I'm buying the golf cart batteries from a battery store. A few
dollars higher than Costco. Five dollars each battery. I get the
cables free from the battery store, so it's actually cheaper than Costco.

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the
batteries.

The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.


Just curious. How many years did you get from your old 8Ds and your old
charger?

How many more years do you expect to get from the golf carts and a new
charger?

Chuck
Chuck;
The old batteries were purchased exactly three years ago. Hard to
believe that it has been three years . . .

One cell is bad in one battery because the electrolyte boiled off and
left the cell dry.

While the other battery checks out ok, I'm not going to take it out so I
can replace the battery behind it, then put it back.

If I had replaced my old charger with a new one three years ago I may
not have that dead cell. Of course, if I had watched the water level
closer I may not be replacing it either.

I do check the water level, but obviously not as well as I should have.

How long do I expect the new setup to last? I have heard from a
knowledgeable fellow that his have been in constant use for 7 years, and
are still going strong. And he's been all over the South Pacific in the
last 7 years.

He's the guy who's recommendations I'm going to follow.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote:
chuck wrote:
Jim wrote:

A day of learning:

Two 6 volt, 220 amp batteries joined to make one 12 volt battery has
220 amps. Even though the guy at the battery store told me otherwise.

My old 8Ds had a rating of 215 amps. 220/215, not much gain there.

The cost of the 6 volt batteries is about 1/2 the cost of an 8D. A
little more or a little less. $65 + $65 = $130. 8D, $140. Not much
gain there.

What this means is that there is little gained, initially, by going
with the golf cart batteries. Since I have to buy battery boxes, it
will cost me more.

The golf cart batteries SHOULD be good for many more deep discharges
than the 8D. The golf cart batteries are easier to move around, and
have a smaller foot print. The battery boxes have more options for
dimensions.

I'm buying the golf cart batteries from a battery store. A few
dollars higher than Costco. Five dollars each battery. I get the
cables free from the battery store, so it's actually cheaper than
Costco.

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the
batteries.

The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.


Just curious. How many years did you get from your old 8Ds and your
old charger?

How many more years do you expect to get from the golf carts and a new
charger?

Chuck
Chuck;
The old batteries were purchased exactly three years ago. Hard to
believe that it has been three years . . .

One cell is bad in one battery because the electrolyte boiled off and
left the cell dry.

While the other battery checks out ok, I'm not going to take it out so I
can replace the battery behind it, then put it back.

If I had replaced my old charger with a new one three years ago I may
not have that dead cell. Of course, if I had watched the water level
closer I may not be replacing it either.

I do check the water level, but obviously not as well as I should have.

How long do I expect the new setup to last? I have heard from a
knowledgeable fellow that his have been in constant use for 7 years, and
are still going strong. And he's been all over the South Pacific in the
last 7 years.

He's the guy who's recommendations I'm going to follow.



Thanks for the info, Jim.

I'd say you're getting good advice.

Good luck!

Chuck

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Larry wrote:

Jim wrote in news:ANErg.4757$ye3.3213
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:


The old battery boiler charger is going in the trash.




Darn....Where do you live? I might try to get it! The 40A heavy duty
charger in my stepvan that charges the house batteries from my Honda 3KW
inverter-genset is the original OEM charger from my friend's Amel Sharki
French ketch. It's one of the finest battery chargers I ever had, but you
must regulate it manually through its 3 steps...low, medium and bigtime...
(c;

That old charger is a great battery charger IF you take the time to TIME
its charging. It's just a rotten float charger for a boat.....

The one under my desk rarely drops off past 20A, charging the 1930's
vintage Edison Nickel-Iron-Potassium Hydroxide telephone cells under the
house. That's the "house house batteries" here in hurricane country.

POWER is REALLY our friend when the powerlines all lay in the street!

The old charger is a "Professional Mariner" Newpro 20 (20 amp, three
battery bank, hard wired charger). I believe the used boat parts places
are full of them. They are old technology.

Where are you located? You can have it if you wish. Probably would cost
$10 or so to ship it UPS.

You'll have to wait until I pull it out in a couple of weeks. I ordered
my new charger on line last night. I'm not doing anything until the new
charger arrives.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote in news:zpHrg.1717$vO.610
@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:

He said two 6v 220 amp batteries will give 12v, 440 amps.


Nope....nice dream, though. Two 6V 220 AH in series gives you 12V at
220AH, not 440 AH. It's still only 220AH, just the voltage doubled. The
plates didn't get any bigger in the cells when you connected them in
series.

You can get 440AH at 6V by parallelling them....doubling the plate area....

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Jim wrote in news:qSQrg.4991$ye3.308
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Where are you located? You can have it if you wish. Probably would cost
$10 or so to ship it UPS.

You'll have to wait until I pull it out in a couple of weeks. I ordered
my new charger on line last night. I'm not doing anything until the new
charger arrives.




I was just trying to get you to save it for other purposes. I can't help
it. I'm a packrat. There's somewhere around 8 chargers, even a couple
that do 36 and 48VDC, around here.......er, ah.....somewhere....

I'm for saving the old charger for the dead car battery or the lawn
tractor. But, if you must toss it, give it to someone on the dock. Set it
out on the dock with a sign that simply says "FREE CHARGER that works". I
bet it won't last a Saturday morning. Saves you haulin' it home.

A great place is right under the marina bulletin board or the entrance to
the Men's head....(c;

Don't tell 'em whos it is or they'll be buggin' you to hook it up....

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

Sorry Larry, you have some misinformation here. First of all, a pair
of Trojan T105's will happily accept 40-50 Amps for an extended
period. I have 4 of them, and on a daily basis (when cruising) charge
them with a 110 Amp alternator. The charge rate starts at about 104
Amps, and slowly goes down. After about an hour it might be down to
65-70 Amps, which is where I'll usually stop. My 100 Amp charger also
hold the charge rate fairly high.

Secondly, although I don't often discharge at 50 Amps for an extended
period, most of my battery use is powering a DC fridge which draws 28
to 36 Amps. There is no evidence that this significantly reduces the
capacity of my bank. I normally discharge to about 50% (down 200-210
Amp-hours) and at that point the bank is still holding about 12 Volts
under load.

This affect is described empirically by Peukert's Equation. For each
battery design there is an exponent that allows you to predict a
battery's performance as you vary the load. Using 1.24 as a typical
"good" exponent means that 4 times the load drains the battery 5.6
times faster, implying an increase drain of a bit over a third.
Looking at the specs from Trojan:
http://www.trojan-battery.com/Produc...spx?Name=T-105
and Penn:
http://www.eastpenn-deka.com/products/pdfs/0248.pdf
it looks like they do about that. You would have to have a very high
discharge rate - close to 200 Amps - to reduce to capacity by half.
If you were actually interested in a battery for a high output
application, such as an electric car, you might look for one with an
exponent down around 1.1.

Its possible that my regime of high discharge and fast charging has
reduced the life of my batteries. But my first set lasted 7 years and
and may have gone a few more if illness had not interrupted their
proper care one winter. However, since a few phone calls turned up a
golf cart dealer that could supply them at $70 each, the cost was only
$40 per year. I have noticed that my new batteries perform better
than the old, but at 7 years the old set was probably only down 10-15%.


Larry wrote:
Jim wrote in
ink.net:

I'm upgrading my charger to a Xantrex "True Charge" 40 amp, 3 stage
charger. The "Equalizer" function is important to maintain the
batteries.



The batteries only need 20A, so that leaves you with 20A of load current
while the charger is on.

The battery store guy should know better. 220 ampere-hours has nothing
to do with 220 amps. Ampere-Hour is a measure of the stored energy in
the battery. The "rating" only holds true for ONE load, the load that
drains it in 20 hours (that's about standard in the battery biz). 11
amps will drain it in 20 hours, so that would be the "standard load" for
this battery. The slower you discharge it, the more ampere-hours of
energy it will produce, way beyond its rating. The FASTER you discharge
it, more than 11 amps, the LESS its ampere-hour capacity is at that load.
This is caused by chemistry and physics. The chemistry is the speed at
which the acid can eat away at the soft lead plate's surface area.
Quickly discharging it with a heavy load, the acid by the plate is
quickly consumed into lead sulphate ions in suspension, blocking more
acid from attacking the plate surface. So, it's not some incredible
limit. Starting batteries overcome this problem with an incredible
number of plates producing an incredible surface area that can produce an
incredible instantaneous current.....but for a price. To keep the
physical battery size, the plates have to be very thin. Their amp-hour
rating is actually very low, as anyone who has been cranking a dead motor
for a few minutes when the lights go out can attest. Deep discharge
batteries use thick plates with lots of lead to eat and much more acid to
eat them....at a slower rate, 20 hours standard. At 50A, and I'm only
guessing as I don't have a chart in front of me but you can find them on
the net, the AH rating of the 220 AH battery is probably about half,
maybe a little more. Well, you get the picture. It's not a bottomless
pit of power, actually kind of small for its weight.

Nice charger, but you'll only see 40A charging them for a few minutes
before the charge quickly tapers off to a safe charging level below 20A.
If you never discharge them below specific gravity of 1.125, they'll last
a long time.

Golf Cart batteries / What I have learned
 

One other thing, golf cart batteries IIRC are designed to be discharged
a bit more deeply than are regular deep cycle batteries. Running a
golf cart around a course all day is pretty taxing work for a battery.
You'll probably get far more usable power out of the golf cart
batteries than you did out of the 8D. And if you have a cell fail, as
you did in the 8D, you won't have to spend as much to replace it. I do
generally recommend that the batteries in a bank be the same age and
make, but if you kill a cell, swapping in a newer battery of the same
make is often doable.

Golf Cart batteries
 

On Fri, 07 Jul 2006 21:50:35 -0400, Larry wrote:

Does it say 20 Amps or 20 hour rate??

20 hours would be 11 amps, right?

Yes, I've probably got the numbers for my 4 batt bank in the back of
my mind.