Sam's club or Trojan?

[minimotos95]

Alright so I need real batteries but am left with the the choice, 
Trojan T105s,roughly $270 for a pair just across town
Sam's club GC2 batteries, roughly $180 but would cost an extra $20 in gas round trip and potentially some fast food. 


The Trojans are obviously the better battery and have an authorized dealer here in town where I am stationary for the foreseeable future. But are they really worth the extra cash? The sam's club is let's say $70 cheaper, essentially the same in regards to capacity and size, but is more likely to need warrantied, which would mean driving round trip again?
For the sake of this decision, weight, size, capacity are not factors. Just the dollars and the expected lifespan. 

I am currently running 100w of solar but will likely upgrade to 200w in the future. My energy consumption will be based on what I can replenish so it is likely rare I will take the batteries below 80% until my solar gets upgraded. I can't go any bigger than a 200w system on my van so a pair of golf cart batteries should be more than sufficient for a long while. Right now I am scraping by with a small starting battery. 

Some rough calculations I did showed the T105 would have to last 7 years to be the same value as the sam's batteries if they last 5 years.

 

[SternWake]

I think The 6 v GC-2 at sam's and Costco now are made by johnson controls. I do not believe they are well known for their deep cycle blends. more of a starting battery/ marine battery, Kowtow to walmart's price point type company.

My Vote is for the trojan's Not only is longevity a factor, and this is directly related to how well/often/quickly they are fully recharged, but they 'might' also be easier to fully recharge, requiring less time at 14.8v @77f for specific gravity to max out.

Also consider the ability of such a battery to rebound from unintentional abuse, like being drawn down below 10.5 volts for any period of time. This can push a lesser battery over the cliff edge, the higher quality battery will be damaged, lose some capacity, but stands a far better chance of having many more cycles left in them.

Its hard to regret purchasing quality. I often will accept that I spent more than I needed to, but the warm and fuzzies are priceless, but when I do let my limited budget influence decisions, I often do regret it.

Kind of like buying harbor freight tools. It might be good enough for a job or two, and one can lend it out without much concern, but when it fails, wouldn't that money spent on the lesser inferior product, have been better spent toward a percentage of the purchase price of a product of Known quality?

The variable here is unknown. I know Costco is now selling interstate batteries and I know Interstate used to use USbattery to manufacture their GC-2, but no longer. If they are Johnson Controls manufactured, well JC does not have a Dog in the Hunt in the deep cycle battery world. USBattery and Trojan do.

Look around a little more too. Both Crown and EastPenn/Deka make high quality 6v gc-2 batteries. I think Batteries+ sells Deka GC-2s

So I vote for spending the extra for Trojan, and get yourself a hydrometer. OTC 4916, and see if your limited solar can return the Specific gravity to 1.275+ after your nightly usage on a good sunny day. Tailor your overnight usage so that 1.275 is attainable on a good sunny day with the solar you have.

You can add alternator charging now or later. If you drive early in the morning, the alternator can do in 30 minutes what might take the Solar 6 hours.

Low and slow and steady is safe, but it is better to recharge faster and have the best chance of achieving 100%, than it is to start the next discharge cycle From 92%, so Do not fear high amp charging via the well wired alternator. The batteries can take it, What they cant take is repeatedly cycling having never regained full 100% charge.

Well wired meaning a thick copper circuit from alternator to house bank and back to ground. This is at the expense of the alternator longevity though.

My preliminary data shows Idling making 32 amps total has my alternator 47 degrees f hotter, than driving while making 55 amps total.

220F is a tipping point in alternator longevity from What i have read.

 

[george warner]

The Sam's Club  GC  Batteries   , East of the Mississippi are made by East Penn/Deka   and sold as Duracell,  West of the Mississippi they are made by Johnson Controls  and sold as Energizer...

 

[minimotos95]

http://m.samsclub.com/ip/energizer-golf-cart-battery-group-size-gc2-/prod6750008
Energizer/Johnson controls in Colorado so I guess the Trojans are the way to go unless I find another battery dealer. I've talked to pretty much everyone in town, Interstate doesn't sell any real deep cycles and doesn't want to order any.
The GC store that sells Trojan, can get the t605 but not any cheaper than the t105 because of how many 105s they sell.

A battery hydrometer is on my list.

 

[Almost There]

Ask the Trojan dealer how much more they want for the T105REs before you go ahead with the T105s.

They may be more than you're willing to pay for but they come with a 5 year warranty as opposed to 18 months?? for the T105s and at 50% discharge cycle they're rated for 1600 cycles as opposed to 1200.

 

[highdesertranger]

I vote for the t-105's, but make sure you up your solar to 200w. highdesertranger

 

[ccbreder]

I purchased GC2 at Batteries plus Bulbs. $109 for Duracell labeled East Penn. 235AH, 2 months from manufacture date. Sam's Club had them at same price, but needed membership at $65 or so. No other benefit to Sam's Club membership to a single wanderer.

 

[johnny b]

I would go for the Trojans, or see if that dealer has Crown Batteries (might be a bit less $).

A little anecdote on Johnson Controls:
In my former life as a phone technician, one of my regular customers was a Johnson Controls office. Had a mid sized PBX that we ran on 48VDC via 8 Group 31 size 12V deep cycle batteries (4 in series, then parallel for 48V) kept on a power supply/charger.
So less than a year in and during a power outage their stuff went down after about 30 minutes and they were pissed. Should have lasted at least 2 hours!
So I get there to troubleshoot and find a dead cell in one of the batteries. After replacing the battery, I went to my contact there and asked if he could expedite a warranty claim since the bad battery was made by Johnson Controls !  We had a chuckle, he signed my work order, and life went on.

 

[SternWake]

Cool story Johnny b.

It should be noted to readers that the traditional car jar size BCI sized flooded batteries like group 24/27/31 are all meager attempts to stuff deep cycle internals into these size factors.  If a group 31 had plates as thick as a t-105 is would have about 250CCA and about 75 amp hours, making it pretty useless as a deep cycle battery or a marine battery or a starting battery.

So the 115Ah ratings and 650+ cca figures are indicators that these batteries have more numerous thinner porous plates to deliver the higher CCA numbers.  They just slap 'deep cycle' on the label and people believe it.

Even trojan's  group 31 has only half the rated cycles to 50% as its own t-105, as GC batteries were originally designed for maximum cycle life in deep cycle usage. They are not a compromise like every jar size originally designed to go into a vehicle to crank a electric starting motor

AGM batteries can blur the line between starting and deep cycle in the 24/27/31 sizes, with Northstar and Odyssey touting their thin plate pure Lead technology.

Well thin plates are usually not associated with deep cycle duties, yet these two AGM manufacturers claim some pretty ridiculous cycling lifespans.

Lifeline AGM have significantly lower CCA figures than Northstar and Odyssey, but reportedly has thicker plates than a t-105.  AGMs like to use a 'Pulse cranking amps' figure instead of CCA.  Pulse is for 5 seconds, CCA is for 30 seconds.  The lifeline can still easily be used as a starting battery, especially in a fuel injected vehicle that starts within 2 seconds of engine cranking.

I have a Northstar, that so far, i find impressive, but I could not keep it happy without being able to plug in, and holding absorption voltage for 8+ hours when required.  This is required after 4 or 5 cycles where it does not get back upto 100% after every cycle, it Just takes forever for amps to taper to the prescribed 'full charge' level, and this is getting back upto 85 to 90% daily before discharging again.  Perhaps this 'punch drunk' behavior would go unnoticed without an Amp hour counter/ battery monitor.  Ignorance is bliss afterall.

Not enough daylight to achieve and hold 14.46v until amps taper to 0.425 on this 90AH battery, and If i could not plug in, I doubt I'd be as impressed with this battery in a purely Alternator and solar recharging world, not with my limited driving and this laptop sucking so much battery capacity nightly.

Trojan's t-105s should be much more resistant to this partial state of charge cycling, but 100% achievement should still be achieved as often as possible, and with flooded batteries, use a hydrometer, as voltage and amperage flowing at absorption voltage are just clues, data points, the hydrometer is the battery polygraph.  It will reveal the charging source to be adequate or inadequate, regardless of blinking lights or a voltmeter in the high 12 range that so many seem to feel actually reveals battery state of charge, capacity and health when there can be just a loose correlation with little basin in reality.

temperature compensation is pretty critical on Hydrometer readings.  Avoid the plastic hydrometers that say they are temperature compensated.  The OTC4619 glass turket baster style has a thermometer on the rubber part.  Give it a few seconds to respond to the temperature of the electrolyte.  When charging the center cells will be hotter than the cells on the end.  note that when hot, one must compensate downward, So the level on the float might remain the same but when compensated for temperature, the SG is still rising.

Establishing baselines on new batteries when fully charged should be considered necessary to have readings to compare to in the future.
if one is interested in squeezing every last cycle from the battery.  A few cells will always be a little lower than others and one can just check these cells in the future instead of every cell.

Otherwise just do your best and they fail when they fail,  hopefully the rental contract was of sufficient duration.

 

[rvpopeye]

Stern's knowledge of battery care and use needs to be made into a book or something !!
Always so willing to help out with good info,
Well done sir...........think you would mind another point on the rep column?

 

[minimotos95]

Issue resolved. Thanks everyone, especially Stern for expanding my knowledge further.

Hydrometer will be here Friday according to ups so I will be going minimalist on my power consumption until then.

 

[SternWake]

Good choice.


What will be your charging sources?
Did you find their date codes?

http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/TRJN_0522_date_code.pdf

 

[minimotos95]

Just the 100w monocrystalline, angled towards the sun going through a PWM for now(so I figure 75-80w peak), but I am going to start getting my arse back in gear about getting the motor running, the factory alternator has atleast 30 amps of overhead based on what I know of other mitsubishis.

Ship date is L5 on both, December of '15 I think, I can't find anything near the positive terminals.

With cores the price wound up at $267 for the pair out the door, that's $130ea before tax, Western Colorado. For those of you in the market looking for comparisons.

 

[SternWake]

Well, be sure to check specific gravity when you start cycling them.

Hope that 100 watts on a good sunny day can get you back upto 1.275+ by about 2pm in your usage. Trojan's 14.8v absorption voltage should be considered a necessity rather than a recommendation. Hope your solar controller can go this high. If it can't, but you can hold it at 14.4v for longer, that mitigates the lower voltage somewhat.

If you have access to grid power, a capable plug in charger can really help to 'reset' the batteries, giving them a break.

Definitely take advantage of the alternator if you drive early morning often. Don't Idle to recharge. This might be the hardest on an alternator depending on its idle speed amperage and the temperature it achieves when not moving in a specific vehicle.

I have some preliminary data showing that on my Van, the alternator temp soars idling parked, compared to driving, and heat is the alternator killer.