House Battery suggestions

[Beasty Boy]

Hey All. My house battery(Lifeline 210ah) is shot and since they are only good for 5yrs which mine is a little more than that I can NOT and will Not pay between $540 and$900 for a new one. So what do you guys think of the other options I have in my Ebay cart. All are 200ah but should work dontcha think?
All range from $345to$370
MightyMax
Universal
Casil
Wedia

Thanks Guys

[JoeH]

I replaced my house battery with another Lifeline 210. $575. Figured I'd stick with Lifeline since I got 8 years out of it.

No sales tax if you buy from a solar component supply store.

[JoeH]

Sorry I realize that doesn't help you much and is outside your price range.

Do you have a Batteries Plus nearby? They sell Deka which is USA made by East Penn and are a bit cheaper than the lifeline but considered similar quality.

[Beasty Boy]

Originally Posted by JoeH

Sorry I realize that doesn't help you much and is outside your price range.

Do you have a Batteries Plus nearby? They sell Deka which is USA made by East Penn and are a bit cheaper than the lifeline but considered similar quality.

Hello JoeH

Yea I considered Deka too. $525

[ShuttlePilot]

Greetings Beasty Boy,

I'm probably going to get roasted a little for admitting this but I've used Univeral Power Group batteries since 2010. I believe they can be a possible great value per KwH of storage if used within or under their specifications. The top tier batteries, Lifeline, Crown, Deka, etc, are built with tech that makes them perform crazy good and last, even when pushed to the limits of their performance. Deep discharge, fast recharge, less than perfect charge profiles, temperature extremes. But we pay for that performance. The UPG's can be used for a long time successfully but will need to be used below their specified limits. Or, the UPG will fail quickly.

I use as a personal guide for my UPG as follows. What others do with their goats on their farm is their business. I try to limit disacharge to under 70 amps so no huge inverter if only one 200ah battery. Limit charging to under 50amps. Charge to full after a few days of partial charge. And genuine full charge as in hold 14.7 volts @77*F until amps drop below 4 A per 200Ah battery. I also don't expect Lifeline performance below freezing.

My suggestion is, only because I have experience with UPG, go with the UPG which sounds within your budget. BUT, also spend 150-200$ on a battery monitor. Not a volt meter, a monitor with shunt. I prefer the simpler Bogart Trimetric but Xantrex is a sold unit also. There is good help here on the forum regarding battery monitor install and use if you need it. I believe you have a budget for the battery your trying to stay under but without an accurate monitor your sure to kill even a Lifeline battery prematurely. Save on the battery and have some money for the monitor. It's a good combo.

And if your wondering my first UPG lasted 5 years and I abused it because I didn't know what I was doing and had no monitor. This latest one is 3 years old and living better only because I'm better. Both batteries were around what I could have purchased one lifeline in 2010 at the beginning. So 8 years for a similar price to today, and I didn't have to kill a Lifeline learning what to do.

Hope this helps,
So who wants to talk lithium polymer?

- Eric

[Beasty Boy]

Originally Posted by ShuttlePilot

Greetings Beasty Boy,

I'm probably going to get roasted a little for admitting this but I've used Univeral Power Group batteries since 2010. I believe they can be a possible great value per KwH of storage if used within or under their specifications. The top tier batteries, Lifeline, Crown, Deka, etc, are built with tech that makes them perform crazy good and last, even when pushed to the limits of their performance. Deep discharge, fast recharge, less than perfect charge profiles, temperature extremes. But we pay for that performance. The UPG's can be used for a long time successfully but will need to be used below their specified limits. Or, the UPG will fail quickly.

I use as a personal guide for my UPG as follows. What others do with their goats on their farm is their business. I try to limit disacharge to under 70 amps so no huge inverter if only one 200ah battery. Limit charging to under 50amps. Charge to full after a few days of partial charge. And genuine full charge as in hold 14.7 volts @77*F until amps drop below 4 A per 200Ah battery. I also don't expect Lifeline performance below freezing.

My suggestion is, only because I have experience with UPG, go with the UPG which sounds within your budget. BUT, also spend 150-200$ on a battery monitor. Not a volt meter, a monitor with shunt. I prefer the simpler Bogart Trimetric but Xantrex is a sold unit also. There is good help here on the forum regarding battery monitor install and use if you need it. I believe you have a budget for the battery your trying to stay under but without an accurate monitor your sure to kill even a Lifeline battery prematurely. Save on the battery and have some money for the monitor. It's a good combo.

And if your wondering my first UPG lasted 5 years and I abused it because I didn't know what I was doing and had no monitor. This latest one is 3 years old and living better only because I'm better. Both batteries were around what I could have purchased one lifeline in 2010 at the beginning. So 8 years for a similar price to today, and I didn't have to kill a Lifeline learning what to do.

Hope this helps,
So who wants to talk lithium polymer?

- Eric

Hello Shuttle Pilot

I'm no electrician so the technical terms kinda go over my head.
So here's what I've got. 2- 100 watt panels,a 2000 watt triplite inverter and a triplite control panel and a Skyblue controller. All I want it to do(which it is suppose to do) is run the microwave(700 watt)and the coffee pot. I never run the two at the same time and usually not the nuker more than 5 min at a time. Right now all it will do is run for 30 seconds and done. It's so weak it won't run the reefer all night. I talked to Peter at SMB west and he said it sounds like a weak battery. But,who knows,electrical issues can be such a P.I.A.
Thanks for the response Eric. I do appreciate it.
Ron

[tortorelli]

The 4d that "Les Schwabb" tire Co. sold me was $250 and lasted me 5 years... ready for another one this summer.

[Bbasso]

Seems like a shot battery. What the SOC after sitting overnight?
As for running those two appliances, one 100th battery and a 7622ACR could be the minimum... wouldn't even need solar but nice to have.

What's your plans? Details would allow for a more precise response.

[arctictraveller]

It does sound like your battery is done. Even with a new battery though, five minutes of microwave and an electric coffee pot will tax even a new battery. Add in the refer running 24/7 and you have used up a lot of amp hours. If you run the engine along with the microwave and coffee pot, you will reduce the strain on the batterys by a lot and you will increase the life span of the new battery. Installing a quality state of charge meter will allow you to monitor the batterys health and also let you avoid discharging it below 50% which will extend the total number of cycles you get before the battery dies for good. Unfortunately, good meters are expensive, possibly beyond your current budget. To answer your original question, to get around 210Ah, you can go to two 6V golf cart batterys in series for under $200, but there are some down sides. They are lead / acid, requiring regular topping up of the water, which means mounting them under the van makes maintenance a pain. Secondly, you will have to make or buy another short battery cable to connect the two batteries in series. All in all though, it's still less money than a quality 4D or 8D.

[Scalf77]

Ron,
All good info here. I will add that your battery lifespan is really measured in cycles, not necessarily in years. The following chart from Lifeline gives us the expected number of cycles based on depth of discharge.


As you can see the magic 50% SOC is good choice between capacity and number of cycles. I pretty much had the same set up when I captured this data. This show smaller drip coffee maker in use with the inverter. It used up 10% of my battery capacity to make one pot of coffee.


I also have another graph showing coffee pot, laptop charging, microwave, and hair dryer for reference.


I have only used a Lifeline battery, so I don't have any experience on cheaper alternatives, but I believe Eric (ShuttlePilot) has given you some good info. I to highly recommend a good battery monitor, the simplest and most accurate (IMO) would be the SmartGauge It does not count amps, but will give you a good accurate SOC number. For Amp counters I would add Victron to the list that Eric gave you. For your usage model, you will need the large shunt provided by those manufacturers. Don't be lulled into purchasing something with a 100 amp shunt.

The other thing to remember is that you are taking life out of your battery with every cycle, so that after year 1 your 210 amphour battery will be less. This is where the SmartGauge shines, it will still give you an accurate SOC. With the other amp counter (shunt based) battery monitors you will need to adjust the size of the battery over time. This can be important because if you rely on on the original setting, when you battery monitor reads 50% you will actually be lower.

As Eric said , completely recharge your battery after a camp out, as soon as possible.

-greg