Any recommendations for a new van battery?

[daveb]

I'd want to check the specific gravity using a hydrometer...at least you'd have an idea of what is going on. I know you said the radio switch nailed you once but wet cell batteries seem to bounce back better than AGM's. If you know why the batteries are not lasting great. Hopefully it's not a battery issue and something you can troubleshoot and find. If not it can be a hair pulling issue. A bad cell generally points toward a bad manufactured battery and although sulfation can be an issue, being the battery is only a year old I would be more apt to rule that out. And yeah, a load test would also help to determine if it's toast but won't tell you why it failed. My feeling is that wet cell batteries will top off much faster than a large AGM and the alternator keeps pumping amps in until the house battery is full. Meanwhile the wet cell batteries heat up and boil off a bit. Not only do they get slightly more overcharged, day to day heat helps the water to evaporate faster than normal. So a cell or two might have exposed plates. Did you check the water level on the batteries you dropped? If the water is low, the battery was damaged.
If the water level is normal in each cell the hydrometer will show if the battery has a shorted cell or two, or if the battery is being pulled down by something else. If all the cells show low, it could be that the battery is not being charged fully or there is some parasitic draw. Hopefully you're not seeing the yo-yo effect Andrew posted about.
IMO we should have separate charging systems for chassis and house but that would be kind of expensive and take up too much room.

[PatO]

Well just a final comment. I did drop the remaining battery and had a quickey "load" test done at the corner gas station and it tested fine. That battery (9 months old) and the new replacement one hold at 12.70 and 12.71 volts respectively after being independently trickle charged and letting sit for over 24 hours to allow the surface charge to dissipate. I believe this episode had nothing to do with a van charging problem, just a luck of the draw bad battery. Realize my 3 three premature failures are spread out over 7 years. Because the van sits a week at a time or more I am going to get a Battery Minder and start keeping that hooked up. I'm considering the solar one but I suspect that might be a problem to install with the panel on the roof and wiring coming down. I found the voltage display on the scan gauge already programmed and will monitor that every now and then. In charge protect mode (1400 rpm) on the idle controller it and the Scan Gauge were both showing 13.8V. I believe I am good to go but I would not replace them with Interstate's next time, especially if they peter out before 3 years. So basically this just cost me 6 or 7 hours of time to drop, futz around and reinstall the batteries. They are such a pain to do but I can't imagine paying shop rates to have someone do it for me!

Back on the road,
Pat

[86Scotty]

Trying to decide if I should take advantage of Advance's holiday weekend coupon and go for an Optima yellow top. 20% off this weekend, max $50.

Hmmmm. What to do, what to do.

[Tapatio]

Sears is offering a $70 disount if you spend $400+. Assuming you are replacing both batteries you can get their top of the line DieHard platinum group 65 batteries for $370+tax. Use code 70AUTO.

[86Scotty]

Originally Posted by Tapatio

Sears is offering a $70 disount if you spend $400+. Assuming you are replacing both batteries you can get their top of the line DieHard platinum group 65 batteries for $370+tax. Use code 70AUTO.

That's a pretty sweet deal too. The Advance one also includes a $50 coupon for future use, so it's really a $100 value. I'm really tempted. I'm testing my starting battery tomorrow, which I think is on it's way out, so it's a coin toss.

[BroncoHauler]

Originally Posted by 86Scotty

That's a pretty sweet deal too. The Advance one also includes a $50 coupon for future use, so it's really a $100 value. I'm really tempted. I'm testing my starting battery tomorrow, which I think is on it's way out, so it's a coin toss.

If its a toss-up, I'd recommend that you buy from whichever store is more prevalent in your area, or areas that you travel. Getting a warranty replacement can be a challenge with certain brands, and makes that 'special deal' not so special.


Herb

[ANZAC]

I've had good luck with Duralast Gold, SMB currently has an interstate MTP-65 (Megatron Plus). No issues except for when I leave stuff on.

I used to use Optimas for everything but then had several cell failures. Stopped using them about 6 years ago.

[E350]

Originally Posted by daveb

My feeling is that wet cell batteries will top off much faster than a large AGM and the alternator keeps pumping amps in until the house battery is full. Meanwhile the wet cell batteries heat up and boil off a bit. Not only do they get slightly more overcharged, day to day heat helps the water to evaporate faster than normal. So a cell or two might have exposed plates. . . . Hopefully you're not seeing the yo-yo effect Andrew posted about.
IMO we should have separate charging systems for chassis and house but that would be kind of expensive and take up too much room.

Bingo! as to the underline.

Daveb: Do you have a link to the "yo-yo" effect? I am curious what it is.

Just a couple of observations from a guy who knows nothing about charging systems. I kept going through alternators original and two OEM Fords. An auto electric shop (Lehr Auto Electric in business in Sacramento since 1945) told me that my Surepower was connecting and the alternator was trying to charge my house battery so that the alternator was always working hard and burning up. And probably decreasing my fuel mileage too.

At one time I also ran deep cycle or marine (kinda half way between deep cycle and starting batteries) as starting batteries. When I discussed this with the auto electric shop they said that starting batteries are made to drain quickly and charge up quickly which is what an auto alternator is made for. But deep cycle/marine batteries are made to drain slowly and they charge slowly which is hard on an auto alternator.

I have since thrown away the Surepower and have an isolated starting/house system. But I am in the process of adding Bluesea battery disconnects between the house and the starting batteries to permit me to "jump" the starting batteries with the house battery when I need it.

And I plan to hook up a charger to the Auragen so that I can charge the house battery when I am driving or idling.

I bought the BatteryMINDer 12248 to permanently connect to my house battery.

And I bought the BatteryMINDer 2012 to permanently connect to my starting batteries.

I am in the process (slowly) of redoing my electrical systems and will mount these permanently so that when I am connected to shorepower at home or at an rv park, they will trickle charge and maintain/desulfate their respective batteries.

For the past three months, the 12248 has been set on AGM and has been desulfating my five year old 250 AH house battery. We will see if it can prolong its life.

http://batteryminders.com/store.php?spa ... &&app=auto

[PatO]

I've had the 15W solar BatteryMINDer hooked up to my starting batteries for about a month now and it seems to be an appropriate upgrade. I put the panel on the roof so they are getting trickled all day. On very sunny days the controller reaches the flashing mode which I understand to be "fully" charged. Starting in the morning it is always real snappy! The real test is if I can get a normal service life out of these.

[daveb]

Originally Posted by E350

Daveb: Do you have a link to the "yo-yo" effect? I am curious what it is.

Probably don't need a link. It's more or less a rule of thumb. Hook a poorly charged battery to a fully charged one and see what it does. The dead one will bring the good one down. Batteries need to be kept topped off to 100% as possible especially while they sit with no charge. Batteries loose a specific percentage of their reserve capacity as they age. Why would you want to connect a newer battery sporting 98% reserve to an older battery can only hold 72%? In a sense you're just reducing the new battery to the older one. Eventually the older battery fails and can lessen the life of the newer one further. I figure if your old battery load tests OK and it's not too much older than the new one, you can use it. It's one of the purposes of the separator.
As far as AGM batteries, today many are suited for starting and deep cycle. For that reasoning I use AGM's for starting batteries over wet cell types. Duel purpose batteries are becoming the norm.

My solar does a fine job at keeping the starting and house batteries up. The problem with alternators is they don't ever fully charge the batteries like even a smaller solar setup can provide.