rupert123 Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 freegoo - 2014-12-20 10:16 AM Rupert, yes when you make the comparison with and exide GEL but you can get a proper fit for purpose Banner one for about £20 more... I struggle to see the logic in buying a Varta starter battery over a Banner semi traction for a motorhome to save £20 I did not make the comparison, you did. As for the logic they work just as well and have a five year warranty, what's not to like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 freegoo - 2014-12-20 10:16 AM ....I struggle to see the logic in buying a Varta starter battery over a Banner semi traction for a motorhome to save £20 Therein lies the problem. You seem to be stuck with the idea that something which is soild as a starter battery should only ever be looked upon as simply a starter battery, regardless of whether it incorporates new technology which gives it the potential for another role as well. At the same time you think that a Banner is a "semi-traction" battery and is therefore offers best value as a MH leisure battery. I don't mind you having those views at all, even if I also think you are missing the point. You spend your money your way and I'll do the same, eh? :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 It's all very well having a battery that should last many years but how many of us keep our vans for enough years to get the full benefit of the outlay - if indeed there is any extra benefit as that remains far from proven? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 FYI: The Banner AGM battery that Hymer fit to all their vans is a starter battery, they obviously do not see it as a problem and they are the largest manufacturers in Europe and unlikely to risk fitting a battery that is not up to the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 StuartO - 2014-12-11 11:26 AM ....... Since we got the solar panel (130w) fitted we have managed easily for the few days at a time we spend off mains and I've occassionally discharged the leisure batteries to as low as 65% (on the Schaudt panel reading) when we have been off mains. ........... The deciding factors are quantifying 'few' and 'occassional'. This implies just a few times a year. A starter battery will normally give about fifty to 100 deep cycles. The more advanced varta should achieve 150 cycles. over 5 years that is 30 deep cycles a year or a heck of a lot more smaller cycles. However things never work as well in reality and even taking half as many deep cycles does 15 deep cycles a year meet you needs? If so, what is the problem with a decent starter remembering many will pay much the same price for a so called leisure which is a just a rebranded cheap Asian imported starter. This is why it is so hard to advise on what battery someone should buy unless you know their full profile of use. Lack of info means suggesting a good leisure, but having info such as they always use hook up and only stop the very occassional off hook up night mean a cheap battery but a reliable brand is all they need. Why buy a Meile professional quality washing machine for your holiday cottage when it only does 10 washes a year when you could buy a cheap Indesit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Brambles - 2014-12-20 8:52 PM ....A starter battery will normally give about fifty to 100 deep cycles. The more advanced varta should achieve 150 cycles. Over 5 years that is 30 deep cycles a year or a heck of a lot more smaller cycles. However things never work as well in reality and even taking half as many deep cycles does 15 deep cycles a year meet you needs? If so, what is the problem with a decent starter remembering many will pay much the same price for a so called leisure which is a just a rebranded cheap Asian imported starter. This is why it is so hard to advise on what battery someone should buy ..... Intuitively these seem like quite low figures. What about Exide Gels? How many cycles will they last? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevina Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 I don't know about the Exide gels but my Victron gels are rated at 750 cycles to 50% dod and 500 cycles to 80% dod. Expensive yes, but we spend 2 months skiing without hookup and didn't want a generator so bought these (at trade price I should add) and a Votronic b2b charger. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 StuartO - 2014-12-20 9:00 PM Brambles - 2014-12-20 8:52 PM ....A starter battery will normally give about fifty to 100 deep cycles. The more advanced varta should achieve 150 cycles. Over 5 years that is 30 deep cycles a year or a heck of a lot more smaller cycles. However things never work as well in reality and even taking half as many deep cycles does 15 deep cycles a year meet you needs? If so, what is the problem with a decent starter remembering many will pay much the same price for a so called leisure which is a just a rebranded cheap Asian imported starter. This is why it is so hard to advise on what battery someone should buy ..... Intuitively these seem like quite low figures. What about Exide Gels? How many cycles will they last? For comparison purposes over 400 AT 80%. dod and probably over 800 at 50% dod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 StuartO - 2014-12-20 9:00 PM [intuitively these seem like quite low figures. What about Exide Gels? How many cycles will they last? Exide G80 Gel, 680 cycles @ 50% DOD, 450 cycles @ 75% DOD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Glad I said probably for 50% dod. Looks like I was was pretty close for 80% dod. Have not looked at the manufacturers specs for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 If gel batteries offer a much longer service life (measured in charging cycles) that will affect the value, as I was assessing it, of Bosch S5/Vatra Silver as an alternative to Exide G80s. Faster charging of Bosch S5s was the deciding factor but not if they have a disproportionately short cycling life. My original Exide gels are still going strong after 9 years but we have only used the MH lightly, only rarely away in it for more than a couple of weeks a few times per year. I've not seen the data on numbers of cycles on manufacturers' websites - could someone provide a link to the relevant data for Exide G80 and Bosch S5 battery types please? (I don't know what dod stands for either, although I think I get the idea.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert123 Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 StuartO - 2014-12-21 10:35 AM ? (I don't know what dod stands for either, although I think I get the idea.) Depth of discharge. It is fine for people to read web sites and discuss the technical details of stuff but nothing beats good practical experience and I wonder how many of the 'guru's' discussing this have any practical experience of using these batteries, Bosch/Varta, as habitation batteries. I also wonder about how people treat their batteries with the number of deep discharges being talked about and if indeed, as has already been pointed out your van will allow this anyway. This year I have spent up to three nights in one spot off hookup on several occasions and battery has never read less than 12.4 volts, how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 There are choices to be made about leisure batteries with widely varying costs and you might as well try to understand enough to get into the right ball park, even if it isn't easy and might not even be practical to make the very best choice - because of the variables in your own pattern of MH use. I'm learning from this and the other current battery-related thread and I'm grateful for the contributions, expert and non-expert alike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 rupert123 - 2014-12-21 11:32 AM This year I have spent up to three nights in one spot off hookup on several occasions and battery has never read less than 12.4 volts, how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Quite easy if you don't ever use EHU, don't do hardly any driving between stops, I managed to get my batteries lower enough for the Truma not to fire up after about 10 days traveling around France in September, we were 4000 ft up a mountain at the time, however it did fire up after turning everything off for half hour batteries recovered enough to get heating running. Never happened since as after that experience I fitted a solar panel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 It is a minefield isn't it? If one only uses ehu so the battery gets very little stress I can't see any point in spending more than you have to as long as the leisure battery is isolated when not in use to preserve it's voltage. If one has a decent solar panel with regulator and a camping style such that the leisure batteries never go flat I can still see little point in spending any more on batteries than you have to? However if your style of use means that abuse and going flat are the norm I can see little point in buying 'El Cheapos' as they will soon die on you and disaster proof Gel/AGM batteries make a lot of sense if only for peace of mind. However I suspect that most of us fall somewhere between the extremes and that is when it becomes so hard to decide which to opt for and I can see the benefits of taking the Bosch/Varta option? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevina Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 rupert123 - 2014-12-21 11:32 AM ............ how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Drive up to a ski resort in January with your single battery, when you arrive lets say it will be 80 -90% charged by the alternator and it's -5C outside. The truma goes on straight away and because it's dropping to -18C overnight it will stay on continuously and be on medium power much of the time. It is dark at 5pm so you also use the lights a lot plus any other power requirements all evening. 24/36 hours later your battery WILL BE down to 50% and you now need to go for a 3 hour drive to charge it back up again; I'd rather be snowboarding. My Solution: 1. get another battery and double your stay 2. get gel batteries and double you stay again because you can take twice as much power out of an 80% charged battery. 3. get a b2b charger so when you arrive the batteries are 100% charged and get another nights stay, you also don't need to drive nearly as far to recharge. By the way I recharge my gel batteries at C5 (20% rate) which Victron say is fine. This is my real life, and the gel batteries will still last longer. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert123 Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 kevina - 2014-12-21 1:24 PM rupert123 - 2014-12-21 11:32 AM ............ how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Drive up to a ski resort in January with your single battery, when you arrive lets say it will be 80 -90% charged by the alternator and it's -5C outside. The truma goes on straight away and because it's dropping to -18C overnight it will stay on continuously and be on medium power much of the time. It is dark at 5pm so you also use the lights a lot plus any other power requirements all evening. 24/36 hours later your battery WILL BE down to 50% and you now need to go for a 3 hour drive to charge it back up again; I'd rather be snowboarding. My Solution: 1. get another battery and double your stay 2. get gel batteries and double you stay again because you can take twice as much power out of an 80% charged battery. 3. get a b2b charger so when you arrive the batteries are 100% charged and get another nights stay, you also don't need to drive nearly as far to recharge. By the way I recharge my gel batteries at C5 (20% rate) which Victron say is fine. This is my real life, and the gel batteries will still last longer. Kev There will always be extremes, although I suspect two Varta's would work as well, but I must admit am generalising and am not daft enough to go skiing in my van. Am off on the 4 January for about five weeks but stay in chalet, motorhomes far to much agro in the alps in winter, no thanks. Why not go somewhere with hookup or is that to simple? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert123 Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 lennyhb - 2014-12-21 12:37 PM rupert123 - 2014-12-21 11:32 AM This year I have spent up to three nights in one spot off hookup on several occasions and battery has never read less than 12.4 volts, how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Quite easy if you don't ever use EHU, don't do hardly any driving between stops, I managed to get my batteries lower enough for the Truma not to fire up after about 10 days traveling around France in September, we were 4000 ft up a mountain at the time, however it did fire up after turning everything off for half hour batteries recovered enough to get heating running. Never happened since as after that experience I fitted a solar panel. So you have run them down once Lennie, hardly enough to bother about is it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted December 21, 2014 Share Posted December 21, 2014 rupert123 - 2014-12-21 3:07 PM lennyhb - 2014-12-21 12:37 PM rupert123 - 2014-12-21 11:32 AM This year I have spent up to three nights in one spot off hookup on several occasions and battery has never read less than 12.4 volts, how do you people manage to run your batteries so low or is all this just theoretical talk. Gel batteries at £150 a time, you must be joking. Quite easy if you don't ever use EHU, don't do hardly any driving between stops, I managed to get my batteries lower enough for the Truma not to fire up after about 10 days traveling around France in September, we were 4000 ft up a mountain at the time, however it did fire up after turning everything off for half hour batteries recovered enough to get heating running. Never happened since as after that experience I fitted a solar panel. So you have run them down once Lennie, hardly enough to bother about is it. That was in the summer, will have more time available to use the van next year & will be using more in the winter so it is cause for concern, hence I fitted 2 x 100 Watt solar panels to the new van and I have room for 2 more if needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 StuartO - 2014-12-21 12:16 PM There are choices to be made about leisure batteries with widely varying costs and you might as well try to understand enough to get into the right ball park, even if it isn't easy and might not even be practical to make the very best choice - because of the variables in your own pattern of MH use. I'm learning from this and the other current battery-related thread and I'm grateful for the contributions, expert and non-expert alike. Stuart, you may find this exide document useful. It shows comparison betwen Gel, AGM and dual purpose batteries. https://www.caravantechnology.com/Assets/Datasheets/Exidedatasheet.pdf edit - typo. Why is it I never see mistakes until immediately after I post!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Very interesting Brambles, thank you. Exide compare three types of battery for purposes of motorhome use in this document. They include one graph which compares their duration of service life, as reharge cycles which varies with how deeply they are discharged. For use as a leisure battery, you need to know how deeply you will be discharging your battery, overnight or over multiples of nights, then you can decide how much to spend because of course the better battery costs more. From this graph it can be seen that assuming an average discharge down to 50%, the number of cycles would be gel 850, agm 750 and liquid 275. With and average discharge to only 65% of capcity (as mine does) the figures might be (extrapolating a bit) 1,200, 875 and 310. Unless the Bosch S5 figures were much better than those for an Exide liquid battery, the contest appears to be between gel and AGM. Cost comes into it too of course, and weight per ampere hour. The AGM charges faster than the gel and so does the liquid battery but the gel delivers more AH capacity for its weight. Gel are dearest, followed by AGM then liquid. I think we need a similar graph fom Bosch or Varta - does anyone have a link to one?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevina Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 I think the fact that some agm batteries "can" be charged significantly faster (eg. at 50A for a 100Ah battery) is a bit spurious for motorhomes as 99.9% will not have the correct chargers to enable this, even a b2b charger won't help much. They will still charge about 10% faster with any alternator/charger though so there is a bit of a gain; to do with lower internal resistance. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Your 65% of capacity put another way is called 45% dod. Yes you are correct the figures will be higher as you 'strain' the battery less. The liquid battery as you refer to it is normally called a 'flooded' or 'wet flooded' battery. The Exide Dual shown is a flooded dual purpose battery. It would be a close equivalent to the Varta Flooded Leisure which is also a Dual Purpose Battery . It is NOT the same as the S5 which has a lower cycle life of around 150 at 50% dod. Looking at the Exide chart it looks as if the Exide Dual has a better spec that than the Varta flooded leisure as the Varta flooded leisure is 200 cyles at 50%dod. I am actually a bit taken back by the cycle life of the Dual ( ER batteries) from Exide because it is a lot higher than the previous data I have looked at from memory. I might be getting confused as I am remembering it being lower than the original Varta obsolete flooded leisure batteries (400 cycles) and never really compared with latest Varta offerings. I will need to see if I can get hold of proper commercial data and test sheets but on the marketing blurb which the link I gave you is, it looks very good. Enough for now, I am getting brain fade so goodness knows about any one else reading this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Yes Jon - a bit of brain fade - nevertheless it is an interesting subject and one that affects so many of us non EHU users so if you and the others who know about and understand these things don't mind doing the research as you obviously have sources that most of us don't, I for one an very glad to be able to carry on learning. Who knows you might even convince me to buy other than flooded batteries next time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 kevina - 2014-12-22 6:53 PM I think the fact that some agm batteries "can" be charged significantly faster (eg. at 50A for a 100Ah battery) is a bit spurious for motorhomes as 99.9% will not have the correct chargers to enable this, even a b2b charger won't help much. They will still charge about 10% faster with any alternator/charger though so there is a bit of a gain; to do with lower internal resistance. Kev AGM and Gel are more efficient at charging anyway without losing as much energy into heat in the charging process with Gel having very low losses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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