Batteries-Lead Acid Wet Cell or AGM and what about L16s? Help!

Laughing Richard · May 23, 2013

leftcoastadv, Thank you that's absolutely beautiful. Your drawings made it real clear on the balancing. And the same length for each cable is a good one to know. That's awesome that you get right at 3 days reserve capacity before charging and you're running all those things! Thanks you helped me understand much better. Richard

VanLifeCrisis · May 23, 2013

The duracell GC2 from sam's club are rebranded deka batteries, which are supposedly comparable to trojan in quality.   Next month I am getting 2 of them myself if all goes well.

bee · May 23, 2013

On the battery post question, I use number 6 because that is what comes on most golf cart batteries.  I don't use the automotive terminal and just the threaded post.  If I had a choice I would go with 5 or 9 that way there is no chance of stripping the threads on the post, you just use your own bolt.  I had a terminal come loose on me because I was afraid to really tighten down on those lead threads. What happens to the batteries with only a threaded post if the threads get damaged?  Is the battery junk?

Laughing Richard · May 23, 2013

bee, Good point about using 5 or 9. Makes sense. Richard

highdesertranger · May 23, 2013

glad to hear you have landed back on terra firma.  imho if you can't do it with 4 6v golf cart batts you are spending to much time indoors.  just my 2 cents.  highdesertranger

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

highdesertranger, Yeah I was over reacting to the fact that I don't want to use a generator I guess. I've lived off power before but in a house where there were a lot more batteries and panels supplying the too many appliances using power. A lot more than what I'll have in the van. I just really need to spend a year with a small system and see how well it works for me. Indoors is not the place for me! Just out of curiosity what kind of solar system have you found to work for you? If I recall correctly I've seen some pretty cool prospecting camp pictures of yours with a solar panel or 2 correct? Thanks, Richard

caseyc · May 24, 2013

My preference is to have the largest battery possible given the space available, and the least maintenance possible. I rather pay more for a better battery, unless we are talking many thousands, but I don't think it's that much more for a better battery.  I learned a long time ago that it's better to pay more to get something better in the first place, rather than having to pay a 2nd time for what I should have gotten the first time.  That means paying twice, which comes out to be a waste. A battery is a very important component for comfortable van dwelling, especially if you have lots of electronics or power needs.  I would not skimp on a good battery.  I learned this lesson the hard way myself.  I purchased my first auxillary battery that was too small for my needs. My needs kept growing and growing and growing, it became a sickness actually, haha!  The first underpowered battery died on me.  I ended up paying nearly $4,000 for a conversion van shop to do a custom job of installing a much larger Group 27 AGM battery housed in a separate compartment underneath the van floor, attached to a new 2,000 watt pure sine inverter, plus 2 solar panels on the roof to trickle charge the auxillary battery, plus meters to monitor voltage, plus added 4 additional 12 volt adapters connected to the new larger battery so I can power more toys. Is $4,000 a sizable sum to pay for all this?  Ummmm, well, that depends.  Obviously, I wish it were half the cost or less, but that's what it came out for my particular needs.  The van conversion shop did a super first rate job at installing all this upgraded battery stuff into my van, so I'm not complaining.  Good luck to you, I know this topic would give anyone anxieties.

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

caseyc, How many watts are your 2 panels on your roof? And what's the amp hour rating of your battery/batteries at the 20 hr rate? Do you feel that you have enough power now? How many amps / day do you use? I hope none of these questions are too personal I'm just trying to get a feeling for what it's gonna be like living on solar in a van. Thanks, Richard

wrcsixeight · May 24, 2013

Richard, YOu do not list what you expect to power and for how long and often, and where you plan on extracting energy from the sun and at what times of year.  We who live from solar could give you an idea of what you need to get by with if we knew. I will say there is a tendency for many to either go very large, or too small, and sometimes both at once. Like CaseyC's group 27 AGM battery could never provide 2000 watts for very long(minutes), and all his devices all together likely could never ask for more than 400 watts.  One might think a guy with a 2K watt inverter would have a huge solar array to feed a large battery bank, but he has 2 20 watt panels due to roof space limitations.  Not sure of the prices on pure sine inverters, but there was a chunk of change that could have been saved there. There was another guy on here that wanted 800 watts on his Van roof and huge amounts of storage too and wanted to run air conditioners off solar.  He might do it too.  I hope he can. I really like HDR's saying that if 4 GC batteries are not enough, you are spending too much time inside. We all have different requirements. I have 230 amp hour of house battery and another 115 under the hood.  That was when new.  I estimate the house capacity is down to about 100 A/h or so, and right now I use 22 to 55 AH overnight with the loads being the compressor fridge, TV laptop, fans and LED lighting I have 198 watts of solar flat on the roof, though I can tilt the framed panel, but almost never do.  Right now, this time of year, most days, the solar has gone into float mode by 1PM. I have the acceptance voltage set at 14.5, for 90 minutes.  Around noon I will see 11 to 12.5 amps from the solar. I do not drive much, but in the morning I will allow the alternator to contribute to the house batteries.  This is typically just a few minutes starting at around 52 amps and tapering to the mid 20's by engine shutdown, depending on where I decide to go surfing.  The amp hour counter does not go down much at all through alternator contribution, but I feel the short lived 50 amps is appreciated by my batteries as they seem to hold a higher voltage the next night when I feed them with alternator, even briefly. Sometimes the solar does not contribute when the engine is running, other times it does.  Depends on battery state of charge, and when my engine voltage regulator in the engine computer decides to revert to 13.7 which is  almost always too soon. I am debating replacing my house 2 group 27's with one group 31, and also downsizing to a smaller engine starting battery with just enough CCA to start the engine.  The engine battery never sees any house loads and i do not need a large high capacity battery there. I am looking at ways to lighten the load for a MPG perspective.  With all the hills, traffic lights and short trip driving I've been doing the extra unneeded weight is a significant MPG detractor.   I have too much storage under my Bed, that I cram with too much stuff.  I recently did pull out almost a hundred pounds of crap and notice I am getting a few more miles on 20$ of gas. Right now I also have the option of plugging in, but then my solar has nothing to do all day and I run up my parkingspotlord's electricity bill unnecessarily. In the winter I run a 12 volt mattress heating pad that consumes some more, and with the shorter days and lower sun angles and more cloudy days, does not allow me the buffer zone, and I plug in more often. Really if I did not use this dang laptop so much, I'd use half the electricity I do. So I am turning it off right n

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

wrcsixeight, My plan is to have three 315 watt panels on the roof rack and laying flat no tilting to keep my batteries topped up and topped up early in the day. The roof rack panel combo acts like a second roof which in theory will keep the van a little cooler. The plan is to have at least the front 13 feet of roof covered with the 3 panels (52" wide each x 3 = 13') all vents will be low profile to stay under the panels. No satellite dish or air conditioner on top.   I'd like to have a buffer zone of 4 to 5 days of no sun and still be above 50% on the charge. My main push for the larger type system is to not ever have to use a generator. With a generator I could probably get by with just 1 panel on the roof and 2 - 6 volt GC  batteries for house power. I have a real aversion to running a generator and because of this I won't have the security blanket to fall back on. I don't want to be caught out in no man's land and run out of power just because of poor initial planning on my part. I don't usually like spending time around a lot of people so I won't be plugging in much. I guess it was the Boy scout motto that sticks with me "be prepared". I plan to run a 12 volt fridge and freezer. A NovaKool R5810 which would take about 50 amps/ day at 90 F; I'll be running fans, laptop,TV, phone, lighting, power tools for building, as well as battery chargers for cordless tools, water pump, waffle iron, and a few other things that I can't think of right now. Maybe a microwave but haven't decided on that yet. I'd rather have the extra weight and drive slower and know that I don't need to worry about running down the batteries too low. As to where I'll be doing this and to which time of the year. I don't want to limit myself to any one spot in the US Canada or Mexico so I'm preparing for all seasons. I know that probably 95% of the time I will have spare power to waste but that other 5% when I'm parked in the deep forest or in the north during winter with little to no sun I'm gonna be very happy to know that I can stay right there and not have to move because I planned ahead for just that scenario. My main question here from the beginning was not how many batteries should I get but which type either AGM, or flooded and what is the problem with the L16's for an RV/Van. You helped me understand a bit about possibly why the L16's are not good for the road and pointed out that you do fine on flooded and the cheaper price of the flooded over the AGM's was an easy decision for me. I don't mind the battery maintenance and actually like to see what's going on there, checking each cell to prevent any possible future problem. I don't think you can test each cell of the absorbed glass matt batteries. So I'm thinking that I'm gonna go smaller than I had first wanted to but it will be an experiment for the first year to see how little I can get away with in my living habits. Hell, I've lived in a cave for 6 months in Australia with no power what so ever. I could do that again but now that I'm 32 years older than I was then I lean towards a little more comfort. Like having a fridge and freezer to freeze whatever I want. Making ice on a real hot day and blowing a fan over it to cool me down. I really like some of the creativity that this group has shown me here on this site and I'd love to tinker with new ideas as well for cooling and or heating my own living space and with the extra power that I plan to have I won't worry one little bit about some being wasted. Another thing that sits in the back of my mind is the state of the US. I've been overseas now for the last 5 1/2 years and from this prospective things look very bleak. So if the $hit hits the fan, I want to know that I don't have to go try to find a gas station and stand in line in order to fill up my generator in order to live. I want to know that I'm self sufficient and maybe I won't be driving anywhere because of no fuel but at least I won't lack on power! Cheers, Richard

caseyc · May 24, 2013

Hi Richard, Sorry, I don't have that information off hand. The conversion shop gave me a manual on the new battery, I think, but being a guy, I didn't look at it and promptly threw it in the closet. I need to look for it as I'm curious too, haha!  My 2 solar panels are underpowered at 20 watts each. I would have gotten larger solar panels, but suffice to say, I have space limitations on my roof and that was the best I could do given physical space restrictions.  Actually, my underpowered solar panels don't really do much in way of trickle charging the auxillary battery, in my opinion.  But it's a start, and it's better than having no solar panels at all.  Maybe one day I will reconfigure my roof-top, and add much larger solar panels.  For now, it will do.  As to my new auxillary battery, the funny thing is that I try not to turn on the inverter even though I have a larger battery now versus the old underpowered battery that I fried.  My "new year's resolution" was to switch from appliances/electronics that require AC power to 12 volt power instead.  I think the largest appliance I have that sucks up the most juice is my medium size Dometic refrigerator that I got from Camping World.  All this time, I had the AC cord plugged into the inverter for power.  But the other week, I noticed the Dometic fridge came with a 12 volt cord for powering the fridge, and I said yahoo!  So I switched to the 12 volt cord for the fridge and plugged the cord into one of my 12 volt adapters that is connected to the new battery.  The nice thing is that I can now simply turn on the fridge withOUT having to turn on the inverter.  Nice!  Even better, the 12 volt cord has a right angle to it (instead of sticking straight out for the household AC cord) and so now I can place the fridge another 1 inch closer to the van wall.  That extra 1" makes a big difference in a van! Now I have more clearance room for walking from the rear of the van to the front seats, because the fridge is behind my driver seat, and is now closer to the wall.  I don't know if you saw one of my other threads regarding switching over to 12 volt devices versus AC (110volt?) power requirement.  Instead of using larger electronics that require the usual household AC power, I now user smaller electronics that can easily run off of 12 volt power.  For example, instead of using a 14", 15", 17" Windows laptop that requires AC power, I switched over to a Windows 8 computer 10" touchscreen tablet that can easily run off 12 volts via a micro USB outlet, plus has a long 8 hours of battery life when fully charged.  I still have Windows laptops too when I need *raw* power, but now I don't need to rely on it, but instead to use a more power efficient tablet.  I also have other 10" touchscreen tablets that are Android devices, so when I want to say watch a Netflix movie, surf the internet, respond to emails, I can simply use my Android tablets which also have over 8 hours of battery life when fully charged. These Android tablets also have a micro-USB outlet (same as my Android smartphone) and can be powered/recharged via a 12 volt outlet. I also have a Sony 9" screen BlueRay DVD player for watching movies that I rent from RedBox at a local Safeway for around $1.20 a day.  Plus I have a Phillips 7" Television/DVD combination device that can run off 12 volt power.  Plus I now have a couple of decent portable Bluetooth speakers (eg: Jawbone Jambox and Auvio) that can wirelessly stream music from my retired Motorola Doid Razr Maxx smartphone.  These Bluetooth speakers are USB powered and can be powered via a 12 volt outlet.  This way, I don't need to turn on my 10" bass sufwoofer amplifier which sucks up more juice from my auxillary battery.  Obviously when I really want to having booming bass sound, I need to turn on the subwoofer.  But when I don't need booming sound, the portable USB powered Bluetooth speakers work quite nicely and even have a decent amount of bass given its compact size. I have one Bluetooth speaker connected to a smartphone for music wireless streaming. I have another separate Bluetooth speaker wirelessly connected to my various tablets for better sound quality and more volume too. What is the point of all this?  The point is that all these 12 volt powered devices are much more energy efficient and use less energy, and therefore taxes my auxillary battery less.  Plus the nice part is that I don't have to turn on the 2,000 watt inverter. I simply plug the 12 volt devices into various 12 volt outlets, and the devices run just fine.  The last major appliance that I haven't switched over yet is my Toshiba 19" LCD television and separate Sony BlueRay player.  These 2 devices require AC power to run, which in turn means I need to turn on the inverter.  I have this Toshiba 19" LCD TV in addition to a custom installed Audiovox 11.3" ceiling flip down DVD player that runs off the auxillary battery.  The reason I got the Toshiba TV was because it has a larger screen and it's high definition, and it makes a big difference when playing PS3 games. You can actually see all the blood spurting out when playing Mortal Kombat, whereas the Audiovox flipdown screen doesn't quite show the blood spurting details probably due to a lower resolution screen.  Silly and stupid, I know, but hey, that was my justification for a larger hi-def screen, haha!  Just the other day I was checking out this cool 19" screen Jensen TV/DVD combination device that runs on 12 volt power, this thing even has a built-in television antenna tuner.  Now I'm tempted to spend $350 for this sucker! Link here:  <a href="http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/jensen-19-12-volt-tv-dvd/59210" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/jensen-19-12-volt-tv-dvd/59210</a>  If I do get this 12 volt powered Jenson TV/DVD combo, I just might retire my Toshiba TV, but I'm in no rush at this time. The other way I try to conserve battery life for the new auxillary battery is to use propane powered stuff.  So for example, instead of using a tea/coffee kettle that requires household AC power needing the inverter to be turned on, I just boil water using a Coleman single burner propane stove.  I have a few other different types of propane powered appliance so that I don't need to use my aux battery/inverter.  The only last thing that absolutely must run on household AC power is my Sony PS3 playstation.  I don't believe the PS3 can run off 12 volts that I know of.  I enjoy playing arcade games of yesteryear like Mortal Kombat and various racing and shooting games.  I actually don't play games too often anymore because I'm probably outgrowing this stuff.  I suppose I could buy a Sony handheld game player, but that's probably not a good idea, haha!

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

caseyc, All I can say is Wow! You've....... You're............ that's amazing! I'm speechless. But the point that you made is that the 12 volt appliances save power because you don't need to turn on your inverter that has an internal power consumption of it's own and not being 100% efficient in converting from 12 volt to 110 volts you loose some more power. Point well taken. When it comes to electronics and computer things I'm a caveman. Most of what you described above is like a foreign language to me so it went over my head. But I now know when I'm ready to buy any new devices that you would be one of my first people to ask advice. If that's OK with you. But that's another topic and I won't ask here as this is for batteries. Thank you for your help, Richard

highdesertranger · May 24, 2013

Richard right now I run 2 80 watt panels charging 2 marine batts.  I run 2 12v refers and charge a laptop on occasion.  when I build my trailer I will go with around 600/800 watts solar and 4 6v deep cycles.  the marine batts are not really deep cycle and only last a couple of years.  my solar now has to be set up no place to permanently mount.  I do have a small 15 watt permanently mount but it's a trickle charger at most.  yes as far as going 12v whenever possible an inverter has loss the better ones like 10% the cheap ones who really knows.  I am not familiar with that norcold but if it is 12v that seems like allot of amp hrs.  here's a pic or two.  btw the pics were taken a like 7:30 pm that is why the panels are in the shade the sun was already low on the horizon.  the first is the panels,  second are the 2 engel refers.    highdesertranger

leftcoastadv · May 24, 2013

You might also look into picking up a Kill-A-Watt meter. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU </a> This little guy will give you a good idea as to how much power your appliances are consuming. My opinion it is an absolute must when designing your battery/solar setup. I think you'll find your waffle iron is an energy hog. We currently only run the waffle iron on "Charge" days.... <img rel="lightbox" src="/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif" class="bbc_img"> Not to say you can't run it off the batteries but it will sure suck down a big battery bank. Edit... I'd also recommend a Trimetric meter. Or something similar to it. <a href="http://www.bogartengineering.com/products/TriMetric" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.bogartengineering.com/products/TriMetric G</a>otta know what is going into and out of the batteries. <img src="/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle">

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

highdesertranger, It looks to me like you know how to enjoy life. Nice lookin' camp. I haven't received my reefer yet, it's in transit from the company and I'll probably get back to the US the same time it arrives. It's a 12 Volt NovaKool and the amps are 4.4 I think it's a 5.7 cuft. fridge/freezer. The manufacturer's info says that at 70 F the compressor runs about 30% of the time so about 32 amps in 24 hrs if it doesn't get above 70 F. But at 90 F it burns about 50 amps in 24 hours. Now we all know that what is in writing doesn't always turn out to be the case in the real world so I'm thinking that 50 amps / day should be about max and hopefully a lot less. That's good to know that you're running 2 reefers on 175 watts and 2 marine batteries with no problem and power to spare for other things. Thanks, Cheers, Richard

Laughing Richard · May 24, 2013

leftcoastadv Yes both of those items the Kill-a-watt and the Trimetric battery system monitor TM 2025RV are definitely on the order list. I agree need to know what's going on, guessing where the voltage and amps are isn't a good game to play. Knowing is better! The waffle iron is only for clear solar charging days especially once the batteries have topped up and the panels are sleeping on the job it will wake them up and make them earn their pay!<img src="/images/boards/smilies/biggrin.gif" class="emoticon bbc_img"> Cheers, Richard

caseyc · May 24, 2013

I am a gadget freak...I admit it! <img src="/images/boards/smilies/biggrin.gif" class="emoticon bbc_img"> I enjoy electronics of all sorts. Even though I failed at "Basic" computer programming in school, I always enjoyed using computers and computer apps of all sorts. If I were smarter, I would write program apps. But alas, my programming skills are zilch, other than "Garbage In Garbage Out" that was the only thing I remember from Basic programming, haha!  Nowadays, I'm finding myself less and less inclined to want to be a guinea pig for new technology. When I was younger, I jumped at trying out new technology and to be the first in having and using new stuff. Even much worse is all the constant upgrades, that becomes quite expensive. There are really only a few certain things I really enjoy nowadays, and I've learned not to collect too much stuff that quickly gets outdated. Unfortunately, as you obviously noticed, all these gadgets and appliances require power. Lots of power sometimes. That's why I've become a lot more conscious about how much power is needed for devices to run nowadays.  I look for things that most people wouldn't even consider.  For example, I really like devices that can run and be charged up via a micro-USB outlet, which in turn is connected to a 12 volt adapter into a vehicle's cigarette lighter.  Most all vehicles nowadays have a cigarette lighter, which in turn you can plug in a USB adapter.  But don't get just any USB adapter, which most only output 1 amp. You want a more powerful USB adapter that can output say 2.1 amps to 3.1 amps.  Do a search for PowerGen 3.1 dual USB 12 volt adapter, which Amazon.com sells for about $10.00 each.  This more powerful USB 12 volt adapter has enough power to charge a tablet which requires more energy than say a smartphone.  Most tablets require something like 2.1 to 3.1 amps in order to charge up and run properly.  However, a smartphone or cellphone usually only needs a measly 1.0 amp.  Heck, I even have at least a half dozen portable rechargeable power packs that can power up a tablet and/or smartphone while on the run.  I even have various portable solar powered battery chargers that can also power a tablet and/or smartphone.  I even have various car jumper batteries that can also power up various devices via different voltages.  When it comes to batteries in both quantity and variety, I can probably say I have a sickness for collecting batteries of all types.  A rather expensive hobby I must say, haha!  If I had more space, I would probably get a propane powered generator. Mind you, I said propane, as opposed to regular gas.  After watching the poor victims of the Sandy Storm, many people could not get gas for their cars or generators because even though a gas station had gas, it didn't have electricity to pump the gas out of the hoses. Unbelievable but true!  A propane generator is better in my opinion because you can store propane tanks for long period of time versus regular gas. Well, maybe one day, no rush for a generator at this time! If you can get yourself a decent auxillary battery and some decent solar panels, that will serve you well for hopefully quite some time.  Notice I said hopefully because you can never anticipate what might happen.  Here's a tip, which may be quite obvious.  Try to get a larger battery and inverter than you think you need.  Why?  For the simple reason that your needs may grow over time.  In my case, my power needs grew exponentially as I kept acquiring more stuff!  That's how I fried my first "starter" battery.  I ended up having to replace the entire battery and inverter for something much larger. As I said before, my goal is to use as many 12 volt stuff as possible, so I don't have to turn on the inverter.  I have pretty much succeeded so far in making the switch.  The only very last thing is getting say a 19" television and DVD combo that is 12 volt powered.  That will probably be my last device that is 12 volt powered that I really want.  I say "probably" because I find that I'm usually never satisfied and I'm constantly tinkering to improve things.  That too is probably another form of sickness, haha!  <img src="/images/boards/smilies/eek.gif" class="emoticon bbc_img">

Laughing Richard · May 25, 2013

caseyc, Good information, thanks. Cheers, Richard

rokguy · May 25, 2013

I've been using 2 X N200amp hr Century "Truck and Farm, heavy equipment" in each vehicle and cabin. A cross between a deep cycle and heavy starting battery. (they use a wide spaced 11 plate construction) Got 10 years out of two applications each but I've never used them for starting. Not a bad product considering they're not made for solar applications. Cheap but oh so big! Geoff <IMG class=bbc_img src="http://www.centurybatteries.com.au/search/uploads/batteries/N200_CENTURY.jpg" rel="lightbox">

Laughing Richard · May 25, 2013

rokguy That's interesting, not made for solar applications but yet you've gotten 10 years out of them. Maybe you should write the company and tell them you've done research and development for them for the past 10 years on a solar application and you'd be willing to give them your documentation in exchange for ?? more batteries free. I went online looking for them and seems they're an Australian company is that correct? Thanks for the info rokguy, always a pleasure to hear from you. Cheers, Richard

Batteries-Lead Acid Wet Cell or AGM and what about L16s? Help!

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