Message for Allan from A & N Caravan Services

[aandncaravan]

I received an email the other day that asked if the batteries picked out at the top of this thread really do deliver 550 cycles. The email said the thread pops up quite a lot in searches, so it's content was relevant to now.

Well, they obviously don't have the 550 cycles related in the thread. Even the NCC only lists them at 220 cycles.

 

 

The thread particularly picks out a "Numax 110A XV31MF model for £88.75 with 550 cycles" and then hosts a link to a battery supplier.

 

If you follow the link the battery advert has now been changed, for a start the price is £114, and the previous claim for 550 cycles has also been dropped. We would hope that was following 'pressure' on the seller to more accurately reflect the batteries true ability.

 

You will also note that the battery is now listed at a more accurate 105Ah, down from 110Ah, again following pressure in 2018 on the battery wholesaler to more accurately reflect the true battery capacity.

 

If you look at the NCC Verified battery scheme Class B chart, it lists the similar construction (all made by the same Korean manufacturer) Numax, Lucas and Bison ranges as the same weights, capacities and cycles.

 

If you look at the below graph that the manufacturer supplied to the NCC for it to use to 'verify' these batteries, you can see how the graph does indeed show that 220 cycles are 'achieved'. However, a proportion of those cycles are counted way after the best of the industry regard the battery as exhausted/dead and as a result the cycles give back so little energy, they are worthless.

 

For example the best of the industry regard a battery as exhausted once it can no long deliver 80% of Capacity, such as 80Ah from a 100Ah battery.

 

Yet the graph clearly shows cycles delivering less than 5Ah being counted.

Remember, the industry recommend a wet acid battery is not discharged below 50% (DOD), so if you need to leave 50% in the battery then a 'cycle' that delivers 55Ah is giving just 5Ah per cycle, nothing of any value, and in the EU battery industries view, are not counted.

 

If you use the manufacturers graph below, the 'real' cyclic figure is about 168, and yet in a recent test, it didn't achieve even 90 cycles.

That suggests to me that not only is their own definition of a cycle different to Europe, but the whole testing process is as well, and that is why so many Asian batteries have such an inflated 'paper' specification that just doesn't add up. For example, take the Leoch Xtreme XR 1750DC, weighing an ultra light weight 21kg, yet 'claims' 600 cycles when one of the highest quality Exide EP800's weighing a chunky 26.5kg can only achieve 350 cycles?

How can a bog standard technology Leoch XR 1750 even match the Exides figure let alone exceed it by such a huge margin?

 

 

The Asian battery manufacturers clearly have a different rule book to Varta, Bosch, Exide and Yuasa.

 

 

.

For more information on battery testing, the definition of 'Cycle Life', see : http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/general-battery-faq.php

 

At the bottom of the same web page can be found the full letter from the battery manufacturers to the NCC. That the NCC 'Rate' the batteries at 220 cycles, show they didn't even look at the graph, just accepted the 'proof' of the letters text.