Fullriver AGM batteries

[Ericbsc]

Has anybody used these? The distributer came by yesterday. He was pretty knowledgable. I now have six group 27 flooded batteries which I recently fried!! He reccomended the 6 volt instead.  He said the flooded would be the cheapest way to go, but the agm resistance in lower, they are easier to charge, and the explosion danger goes away. I had a car battery go off one time, and it was pretty impressive!!LOL I am looking for advice?? The 6v has 224ah, and six would yield 672ah. He also reccomended not tying more than foue 12v together without charging three and three.  I have six with charging on one end. He also carries lifeline, and surrette. All have the same warranty.

[Oonrahnjay]

    Eric, you know about charging from the alternator (or whatever is on your engine), a clip-on battery charger, and an inverter/charger from "opposite corners", right?  Same thing with drawing power off.  Interesting to see why he says "only three in a group for charging" ... unless you have a totally dead battery or cell, it shouldn't matter.  And I also wonder why he'd say that there's "less resistance" -- all batteries have a lot of resistance when they're being charged, but - of course - AGM's will take a charge faster.  Does he attribute a quicker AGM charge to "less resistance"?
    But, yeah, you're buying a lot of Amp/hr there at 12V.   BH  NC   USA

[sledhead]

I have 6 @ 6volt 220 amp gulf cart batteries 7 years old now and next year I think I will replace them with the same but with 8 not 6 . I use a 12 volt inverter with my a/c unit that draws 80 to 110 amps @ 12 volts kicks the sh!#t out of the batteries and all I do is add more water when needed . The cost 7 years ago was $ 100 each now next year maybe $ 140 each .  imo the best bang for the buck                          dave

[bevans6]

While cost would probably be the biggest factor in a decision for me (I am extremely cheap   ), Next I would consider use and charging.  AGM can be charged far faster than wet batteries.  If I had a charger that could charge that hard, a way to power it and a need to have such a fast charge, then I would strongly consider AGM's.  If I was charging most of the time from my alternator and I also had wet cell start batteries, I would not be able to control the charge in such a way as to charge both sets of batteries the way they each want to be charged, and so I would go with wet cell batteries.  If I was in a situation where I did not have the big charger or was power limited when charging (say I have a 3KW generator and use 2KW for house and air conditioning, leaving less than 1 KW for charging) then I would wonder about the advantage of AGM - ditto if I usually was on a shore power outlet for days or weeks at a time - rapid charging loses it's advantage int hat situation.

Maintenance and longevity is another factor.  You can calculate the life of a battery in charge cycles and if you know your usage patterns you can predict the life and the cost factors.  If you have the batteries where you can maintain them, the dry nature of the AGM loses it's desirability.  I was on the Surrette page yesterday (and found out they are manufactured just a few miles from my house, who knew?) and saw that they are designed for a 10 year life in constant use, that is a big factor.  Mind you they are huge and cost the earth.  Probably almost as much as AGM's...

So it's a hard choice, but factor in can you optimize the features of the AGM's, or would you be paying for things that you really won't use to their fullest extent?  Two things that favor AGM batteries that are often overlooked is that they perform exceptionally well when cold, and they retain their charge for extremely long periods without charging.  Last week I decided to start a race car that has been sitting idle since 2009.  I wondered if the battery (odyssey PC-680 AGM) was toast or if I would be able to revive it.  It had retained a 70% state of charge and was able to spin the engine over by itself - after sitting neglected for 5 years!  Something to ponder - would that capability ever be of use to you?  Will you ever have to go out to your bus on a cold winter day and have to rely on the batteries to not only still work, but work well and have a full charge?

Brian

[belfert]

One thing that some have been doing is to have just one big battery bank and eliminate the idea of having a house and a chassis battery bank.  If you have enough deep cell batteries they won't be hurt by starting the engine once in a while.  The single battery bank can then have a proper three stage regulator to charge the batteries from the alternator.

I thought about moving my house batteries down where I have my starting batteries now to do this.  Unfortunately, the house batteries I have now are about two inches too big to fit into the space I have for my starting batteries.  I have good starting and house batteries now so I'll probably revisit when I have to replace the house batteries in a few years.  I would like to free up the space the house batteries are using if I can.

[Ericbsc]

I think you are right about the charge rate. He did say that the middle batteries will not charge properly if to many middle batteries. I like rhe idea of no gas and no explosion!! I didn't have my lines optimized for charging. I was going to use six 12v for 600ah. He pointed out that I could use six 6v golf cart size each with 224ah for a total of 672ah. The have a taller one with 245 x 6 =735ah. He carries several lines.

[Mike in GA]

Have had the large, 6 v Rolls Surette wet cells for 10 years and they are going strong. Was going to replace them with AGMs a year back, but they rallied from a low water situation and have held up beautifully.
Mike in GA

[garhawk]

Eric,

When last in your bus I didn't notice anything that wasn't first class.

Buy yourself the largest AGM battery bank that will fit into the space you have allocated for them.  Then, for the most part, close the door and go on with important things in your life - like growing a bigger nest egg for your upcoming retirement!

[Ericbsc]

I don't think mine are going to rebound Mike. When I pull water into the sg check tube it has a lot of black crap(burned plate) particles in it!!LOL The distributer called this morning with pricing.

                                                                                      cost per ah
Fullriver DC224 (220ah) golf cart size $ 230.95 x 6 = $ 1385.7   $ 2.09
Fullriver DC224 (300ah taller battery)golf cart size not in stock    $
Lifeline 4CT $267.32 x 6 = $1603.92........................................$ 2.43
Lifeline 6CT $ 336.90 x 6 = $2021.4.........................................$ 2.25
Sams duracell flooded (230ah)$109.82 x 6 = $658.92.................$ .95
Sams duracell agm (190ah)$179.30 x 6 =$1075.8.......................$1.88
( mfg. by east penn)

The 6v golf cart is by far the best bang for the buck, but I always worry about the exploding battery thing as well as the gassing in the bus. The sams agm is cheaper, but less ah and only a three month warranty.

[Ericbsc]

I took you advise to heart Gary! Just ordered the freeriver 6v agms. I think I have most of it covered but about $450.00. Could you float a loan till I can see better!!!

[belfert]

Sams duracell agm (190ah)$179.30 x 6 =$1075.8.......................$1.88
( mfg. by east penn)

Is this a marine type deep cycle battery?  I didn't know Sam's Club now has AGM batteries as a stock item.

[garhawk]

Good show Eric. I gave the money to Tony. He said he'd bring it to you at the Great American Bus Rally!

[TomC]

I am using 4-L16 Lifeline AGM batteries in my truck. They are 400amp each and are a bit taller at 15.75" and weigh 115lbs. Once you experience the lack of maintenance of the AGM, you'll never go back to wet batteries. Good Luck, TomC

[Bob Belter]

Ahoy, Bus Folk,
When I first built my -01 Silver Eagle, I installed AGM batteries.  I later concluded that AGM stood for 'Always Gonna Malinger'.  It has been a while and I believe that AGM's are just fine now, but I installed ten (10ea) six volt Deka GC-25 batteries.  Look like golf cart items, except a bit taller, and a lot lower cost than AGM's.  These are 'watered' units.  I installed a ProFil system, with which you simply 'bulb' distilled water into them until it stops.  My battery farm is covered in the #3 bay, and there are two small computer blowers which afford airflow 24/7/365, at a cost of ~$5 per year.  Last time I looked, all the copper buss bars were still bright and shiny.  Works marvelous.  I have two (2ea) Prosine 2000 watt inverter/chargers to support them.

[belfert]

I don't know that I will ever go back to flooded batteries after some bad experiences with them.  My original golf cart batteries probably went bad because the connecting cables were a bunch of old cables salvaged from a big UPS that was scrapped.  The connectors corroded like crazy even though the batteries never seemed to need water.  I replaced with AGM batteries and wired all of the positive and negative terminals to a common bus with equal length cables so they all charge/discharge at the same rate.

I think the OP made a good decision to go with the Fullriver AGM batteries.  I'm not sure the Sam's Club AGM batteries are true deep cycle batteries.