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Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Yahoo Message Number: 99854
I have a 2005 Inspire that is in the need for new batteries for the coach. I went back to emails in 2011 and 2012 asking the same question.  After reading the Emails information on the batteries from four years ago I am still confused. Currently I have 6 LifeLine Golf cart batteries. Has tech. changed in the three to four years that would warrant investigating different kinds of batteries What batteries would you recommend ? Suggfestion where to purchase ?

Thank You 
Stan

51406 2005 Inspire

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99855
Stan,

I did the same thing. I went to my local Golf Course and asked them to sell  me 4 of their best deep cycle Golf Cart batteries. I'm now on year 3 and would  not hesitate to do the same thing again, I was not concerned what brand. I also  have an 05 Inspire but only have 4 house batteries.

Michael Title
05 Inspire 51381

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99856
I changed to Trojan T105 batteries over a year ago and they use a lot less water the the Les Schwab batteries had before.

Jock Vargo

2005 Inspire
51428

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99857
I have Lifeline batteries that were installed in 2004 so when I change, it will be Lifeline again.

Don

'02 Intrigue 11427
'02 Intrigue #11427

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99859
With my inspire it had wet and I just bought sams club wet golf cart batterys and that was the cheapest route and they seemed to work just fine. My current machine has lifelines and they have performed ok but In this coach it has went through 2 set from 08.I did just buy a new set and will be installing tomorrow. The cheapest iv found for lifelines is Tom at trans-specialist. The new set came direct from lifeline since my current set was less then 5 years old. You can go either way and you will be right. agms are nice to not have to watch the water. I did have to add water to the inspire more often as the batterys aged. When new not so much.
Rod

Trans-Specialist - Your Source for Lifeline Batteries

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99867
I love it when people say they have batteries that are 10 years old....... Makes me smile!
 All it means is one of two things, either they aren't used or the bank is so ginormous that under normal usage the bank only discharges less than 20%. I've set one coach up with the ginormous bank, Marathon H coach with all the room above the drive/tag axle we put 16 Lifeline 8-D's in there, upsizing from the original 8, 8-d's. The owner of the coach was a retired electrical engineer from an aircraft manufacture, so he knew exactly what he was doing. I will say it was a project, and the invoice was huge!
 My first point is that batteries that are never used, coach goes from power pole to power pole and the batteries never discharge or only a small amount will of course have a much longer life. It's all explained in the lifeline manual last page, doc # 6-0101, it really has nothing to do with age, has everything to do with percentage of discharge. And this holds true for all makes and brands for the most part. It's a slippery slidding scale

IMO building a bank that should last 4-6 years and adding a battery monitor such as the BMK add on for the magnum inverters or the stand alone Link 10 unit from xantrex that gives you good AH knowledge is the right way to go. Regardless of brand of batteries, personally I like the DEKA batteries over the lifelines. Yes the lifelines are probably a better unit, but the DEKA's are a very close second and with the cost savings you can afford (justify) the added cost for the meter, and knowledge is power!

Jim

Infinity Coach

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99868
Well, Jim, my coach has only 2 8D's for the house. I do dry camp and run a residential refer off of the inverter all along. So don't accuse me of gong from power pole to power pole. Oh, and by the way, I don't have any solar either.

Don

'02 Intrigue 11427
'02 Intrigue #11427

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #9 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99870
Don,

Not accusing anything. Math is math and facts are facts and real life experiences help. So let's work out some math, expected life cycles is based off of percentage depth of discharge from every manufacture. So if you're a very savvy dry camper and have a battery monitor you'll know how much you've taken out over a period of time. The more you discharge the less cycles you'll get out of a bank. The less you discharge the more cycles you'll get out of the bank. With 2, 8-d lifelines you have a total of 510 AH which for most who discharge to the manufactures recommended maximum of 50% gives an available 255AH. SO if all you did was park and left the inverter on and the inverter standby draw is 5amps (the newer current inverters draw much less but most of the older traces, hearts and prosines draw close to this amount so it's a fair number to work with) it would consume 120AH in 24 hours (5amps X 24hours = 120) so I figure on a 12 hour period between generator run times, so 60AH, now we turn 4 lights on for 4 hours and the lights draw 5amps each, there's another 80ah, totaling 140ah consumed between lights and inverter. Now the reason the inverter is on is because we have a household refer, so now we increase the inverter consumption, figure the refer runs ½ the time and it pulls 2.5 AC amps, times that by 10 to get the dc amps and we get 25 dc amps for full run. 25 amps X 12 hours = 300ah's divided in half equals 150ah's. (refer's are hard to guestimate but ½ run time is a pretty safe amount)  From this I see that I would need ( 60 + 80 + 150) 290 usable amp hours in the bank to not go below my 50% discharge in a 12 hour period. Or in other words it would need 3, 8d batteries which would give 382.5 usable amp hours. Or just run the generator more often or during the high consumption times. Personally I like to build systems with more reserve for hard core dry campers. I usually figure more run time for the refer, heat during the night, making coffee in the morning and some tv time at night and in the morning. So in the case of this equation a 4th battery would probably be needed as I also don't like to discharge below 60%.  Also have to figure that when a AC load comes on such as the refer, the draw won't always equal what the specs are. Such as one inverter that has a standby consumption of 5 amps and then the refer which draws 25 amps turns on you'll see 30 amps leaving the batteries, other ones you'll only see the load amount (25amps), so in other words the standby amperage goes away but not always. The answer is always what the meter reads, if its an accurate meter.

Jim

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99876
Damn, Jim... your two posts together were the best damn explanation of amperage draw and how it relates to battery draw down and battery life that I have ever read. Thanks very much. I have copied it to a reference file. For the first time in my life I understood every word and every concept, so clear was your explanation. Much appreciated. My 2800 Magnum inverter is installed with the BMK monitor, so now I just need to learn how to fully use it. I did learn how to set the AGS to kick on at 50% and then set it to run for an hour which seems to be enough to bring the batteries up to 12.8v +/-. I have a friend coming for a visit who is an electrical engineer motorhome owner so I am going to get him to give me a full demo.

And by the way, I am one of those pole to pole guys, with the occasional walmart overnight thrown in there... so that is about the extent of our overnight dry camping.  Given our usage, there was NO WAY I could justify the cost of AGM batteries to replace my 6 house batteries when I bought the Bus, so I bought 6 new Interstate wet cells... but the coach came equipped with the pro-fill which makes topping off the batteries and maintaining them as easy as pie. We'll let others spend $2400 for 6 AGM's - I'll use my pro-fill setup once every couple weeks to keep my batteries topped off.

Thanks again, Jim... you are one of the reason I stay connected to this forum even though I switched from Country Coach to Tiffin. And by the way we just spent a month in Red Bay Alabama at the Tiffin Service Center and I have to say that was far and away the best service experience I have ever had... I had TONS of things done there and the cost was almost negligible... they "goodwilled" me many many items... and I am the second owner on a now 5 year old coach. Ya gotta love Tiffin. Compare that to the time I took my Country Coach to CC in Junction City and almost went into Cardiac arrest when they presented my bill. I will never drive anything but a Tiffin motorhome again

Joseph Burkle

2010 Tiffin Allegro Bus 43QRP

43' quad slide tag axle ISL 425 HP pusher
formerly:

2008 Country Coach Inspire 360 Founders Edition
Wind-seeker.com

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #11 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99895
I own both Lifelines and Trojan 6V T-125's. Here's the deal: If you go mostly from shore power to shore power, unless you have extra cash lying around, you are spending lots of extra money for little advantage if you buy Lifelines or other AGM's. Yes, you have to add water a few times a year to wet cell golf cart batteries that are rarely discharged, but it take 5 minutes with a watering system. On the other hand, if you boondock a lot, you are wasting your money buying wet cells and AGM's are the way to go. Here's why: As I learned from having Lifelines for 6 years and then switching to Trojan wet cells, the Trojan's (and all wet cell flooded batteries) take WAY longer to accept a charge than the Lifelines or other good AGM's, so what you are saving in initial cost you are more than  losing in the cost of diesel via longer generator times, not to mention the hassle of checking specific gravities, adding water, etc.

Rich 2002 Magna

Re: Suggestions for 6 new house batteries

Reply #12 –
Yahoo Message Number: 99928
On our previous Dutch Star I went just under 10 years on the Interstate U-2200's and we DID use the rig and pulled them down to 10.9 to 11.0 many times. I did add 4 oz of mineral oil to each cell after about two years to cut down on the distilled water usage and corrosion.
 So, yes, it's very possible for a battery to last 10 years in an RV.