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Old 04-07-2009, 11:53 AM   #1
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AGM Battery life

My Sportsmobile is celebrating it's 4th Birthday this month. Can anyone tell me about the life expectancy of the AGM batteries? At the recommendation of the battery manufacturer, I keep The Van plugged in and charging when it's parked in the garage. I just don't want to find myself in a spot where the battery just quits.

thanks..

Tom

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Old 04-07-2009, 08:39 PM   #2
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Re: AGM Battery life

Tom,

Ours lasted 6 years of hard use. We never pluged it in to shore power, only charging while driving. Ours didn't quit so much as it faded away. It satarted to not be able to run the fridg all night and we noticed that after a few days of sitting around that the voltage dropped to ~12.2 or so with no load. We replaced it with one from the same manufacturer.

John
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Old 04-08-2009, 08:49 AM   #3
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Re: AGM Battery life

John, that's good to hear, one less thing to worry about.

thanks..

Tom
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Old 04-08-2009, 11:42 AM   #4
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Re: AGM Battery life

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Originally Posted by flyfisher
John, that's good to hear, one less thing to worry about.

thanks..

Tom
But remember, Murphy says it will fail at the WORST possible time. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to replacing that battery anytime soon.


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Old 04-08-2009, 06:50 PM   #5
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Re: AGM Battery life

As "THEY" say: Murphy was an optimist!
Bill
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Old 04-09-2009, 12:58 PM   #6
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Re: AGM Battery life

Quote:
Originally Posted by flyfisher
My Sportsmobile is celebrating it's 4th Birthday this month. Can anyone tell me about the life expectancy of the AGM batteries? At the recommendation of the battery manufacturer, I keep The Van plugged in and charging when it's parked in the garage. I just don't want to find myself in a spot where the battery just quits.

thanks..

Tom
I've being using the Westmarine SeaGel AGM 8D for the last 2 1/2 years. I use the battery for nuking lunch in the microwave during work lunch almost every week day, drain it down to 25% left almost everday and charge it up at the end of day via the Tripplite Powerinverter when I get home; and leave it plugged in till the next day..

Last six months, the solar panels have been augmenting and helping the drain and re-charge also, probably extending the life of the AGM.

So far it's holding up...
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Old 04-10-2009, 06:06 PM   #7
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Re: AGM Battery life

Battery life depends on several factors. First and foremost how deep of a discharge do you give them. Most AGM style batteries are designed for and 80% depth of discharge, meaning if you have a 100 amp hour battery that you can use 80 amp hours of it without damage.

At this rate most AGM's have about a 450 cycle life. This means you should be able to discharge it 80% approximately 450 times. Now here is where it gets interesting. If you take the same battery and only use 50% the life cycle goes to 1000 cycles. So by discharging it less you can increase life.

How a battery is charged can really effect its life as well. Be sure to use a charger that is meant to be used on AGM's and you increase life. AGM's like to be charged fast for the first 80-90% then pulse charged then goes to a float charge. Never leave a charger hooked to and AGM that does not have automatic shut down or go to a float charge.

Never use and isolator either. Isolators use diodes and right away you have a .7 volt drop. This way the battery never gets to a full charge. Instead use a separator. These are automatic switches that open when the engine is off and close when they are running. No voltage drop and you still have a separate starting circuit. We sell the Sure Power 100 and 200 amp versions. I don't remember what the SMB uses if anything at all.

So the secret to long battery life is size the battery to where you use no more than 80% of its capacity and better still about 50%, and charge fully without over charging.


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Old 04-13-2009, 10:23 AM   #8
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Re: AGM Battery life

Thanks Greg, I think SMB uses a "separator" rather than an "isolater". Anyone out there know about that?

thanks..

Tom
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Old 04-14-2009, 07:51 AM   #9
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Re: AGM Battery life

Mine has a Sure Power Model 1315-200 battery separator.
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Old 04-14-2009, 10:21 AM   #10
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Re: AGM Battery life

They used to use an isolator and switched to a Separator around 04 or 05. Incidentially my Sure Power failed in the connected state and I replaced it with a BlueSea model that has an override switch instead of the On-Start-Position-Override that SMB configures the Sure Power with. Thread Here
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