Deep Cycle battery

[Crusty181]

I bought a Full River brand deep cycle battery 6 years ago after we purchased the first Expanda. From the reviews, at the time, it was the best battery for us.

Its a 120amp/hr battery AGM DC, and has lived connected to the Setec series II the entire 5 years we had the previous Expanda, and for the last year on the Setec series III in the new Expanda. Admittedly I look after it, don't run it down and both Setecs have remained turned on all the time.

The new Expanda comes with a Bosch 100amp/hr onboard deep cycle, so I decided to get the Full River tested to get an indication hows it travelling.

Battery World left it on the machine pulling the requisite 20amps out of it until it got down to 10.5v which took 315 minutes .... translation is the battery is still functioning at the same 120amp/hr capacity it was the day I bought it 6 years ago. Thats a roaring endorsement for both the Setec and Full River ...Full River, worth every cent

 

[Dobbie]

And....do you want to flog it?

Great endorsement. We got 6 years out of our last deep cycle but the key is to keep the charge up to it. I have trouble convincing some that batteries are now designed to be kept charged rather than run down so they tell you when they need recharging.

Mine is also on constant charge via permanent solar and checked monthly if 240 v is needed.

I learned the hard way and have just dumped another jump starter compressor because I forgot to put it on a recharge.

No more! I now have a spreadsheet.

 

[achjimmy]

Great endorsement @Crusty181 is that the one with the metal case? I looked at one for the cruiser.nthey are expensive now.

Yes I think the setec is better than people give it credit for . We have had 3 vans now the first had a 5 yo deep cycle in it and it was fine. With Expanda #2 somebody tried to convince me that the Setec was inadequate to maintain the two remco deep cycles and so I purchased a multi stage Projecta charger with LCD panel that reports what it's doing. Before installing it I thought I would just use it clamped on to maintain the batteries in peak. But everytime I clamped it on the batteries it would switch through the stages in 60 secs to "float" and stay there!

So probably the only thing that could be better is if the setec had a bit more grunt for the dual battery vans? But really with LED lighting today and min 240watt solar setups there is lots of charge available for the batteries hey?

 

[Crusty181]

Plastic case Jim.