battery

we are in Sydney and the engel is MT35F, we use it as a freezer
Thanks
Regards
gerry

mistreated? I have heard of assault and battery hahahahah

hi benq

the above advice is all sound

the true essence of a deep cycle batteries long life is to fully charge it and a d/c battery takes a lot longer to fully charge than a normal one especially while connected to a freezer

people seem to think its ok just to stick it on any charger and just top it up a bit and she'll be right mate!!!!

well the fact is it needs to be left on charge until fully charged
a quick
short boost is the quickest way to destroy a d/c battery and that's more than likely how the two on your rig have been treated by previous owner

i have a 40ltr engel and a supercharge 105ah d/c and it's 3yrs old but i use an arrid twin charger travelling and two 80w folding solar panels when parked with no problems as yet
it's all in the way a battery is treated that's in my opinion for what it's worth

Interesting this came up

Had to get a large battery to power a fridge in a dual battery setup recently. Had considered the All Rounder, as the Projecta system would alow this to also function as a second starting battery, and liked the idea of a second starter in case. However, I didn't know enough about them, so thought I'd contact Supercharge for info.

Spoke to some very knowledgable fellas there, and the consensus was clear.
If you want to run a fridge, get a deep cycle battery, as they'll handle the serious drain/charge cycles much better.

If you need to occasionally crank then the All Rounder is adequate, but you are significantly compromising longevity and performance if you try significantly draining them regularly, and they won't last. As I recall, I think he stated they couldn't be taken below 50% capacity, or you'd kill them (although it was a few mths ago I did the research).

So, they told me to stick with their Amp Tech deep cycles, and we've been extremely happy since.

As he said, there's no such thing as a perfect product. The Allrounder is purely a compromise, and not sutibale for long term deep cycle use.

Hope that makes sense.
Scotty

Rob,
As can be clearly seen on the Supercharge website both the Cranking battery and also the Deep Cycle battery weigh the same @ 26.2 Kg (not 26.7Kg)

SuperCharge MRV70 Allrounder battery

Wouldn't you think the Cranking battery weight to be less than a Deep Cycle battery of same physical size, or said another way, a Deep Cycle battery would contain different lead plate configuration to a Cranking battery and therefore it would weigh more than a Cranking battery ??

Maîneÿ . . .

Mainey,
The average wet cell deep cycle batteries are never the full quid.
Many are simply a modified cranking battery - modified by applying a different sticker, and applying a 6 month warranty instead of the usual 24 month warranty.

AGM batteries will be 4-5kgs heavier and are more likely to survive a deep cycle application.

The Calcium charge cycle is a feature of the newer Redarc smart chargers. Pity they only put out 5 amps. But Rob knows his batteries and if he says an AllRounder is a Calcium battery then it is, and requires a higher charging voltage than conventional multistage chargers will deliver. In my opinion its a good reason to stay clear of Cacium batteries.

Cheers
Phil

A couple of responses in one I feel

Firstly we have two Prado travelling on average 17000km off road each year on tours and delivering training to remote Australia. Both use MRV70 with no problems and we are so confident with them that we replaced the test sets with new ones. The construction of these batteries, as I have previously described is of a much heavier type and technology from your average cranking battery, by a considerable degree. Their reserve capacity equates to many batteries sold as "specialist". Give me a break on 500grams please. If my scales are that far out I don't really care

I would also add that weight is no indication of battery capacity. Calcium to batteries are generally lighter for the same or higher capacity and smaller by virtue of the technology used in their construction. As well there is a considerable difference in the specific gravity of the conventionally termed "tropical battery acid" that also increases weight but also charging capacity amongst other things.

A correction for Phil is that my post does not say the MRV70 is a calcium battery but that the heavier construction of the MRV 70 means that it benefits from setting the Smart Charger to the calcium setting to allow the charger to work its magic. This was as a result of direct advice from the factory who also work with Redarc on charger development.

An observation based on some reasonable experience with caravan batteries is that they are rarely well maintained, no instructions normally provided anyway, and that when the start going flat on a regular basis and very quickly it points to only two causes; one that the batteries are stuffed or two that there is a current draw somewhere that needs to be chased down and that takes time and expertise

I will give you an example. We found that a battery was going flat in the car and everything was switched off. So we checked every fuse and connection and earth and found all to be OK. Only too around two hours. Then we opened every wire until we found a low current draw on a brand new and quite special radio. That radio was a small computer and we found that will all the programming in it there was a need to keep around .5mA to it all the time to maintain the memory. That information didn't exist in the manual and it took several calls to their technical help line to even understand the issue. Still we found and fixed the issue after quite some time and effort and learnt even more about these things one more time

Apart from all of that I have had the privilege of supporting over 600000 members of an auto club and selling over 60,000 batteries to that membership each year. Working very closely with auto manufacturers and the battery industry was something that has taught me a reasonable amount about these strange black boxes we rely on more and more in our 4WD

Regards

RobA

Rob,
the difference with what you do, " travelling on average 17,000 km off road each year on TOURS and delivering training to remote Australia " would keep your batteries maintained, whereby the average 4wd enthusiast uses his vehicle less often, some only at weekends, this causes sulphation in wetcell batteries, not AGM's though, but I believe you would know that.

As to the *half a Kilo* weight difference, if you don't care then thats good

"600,000 auto club members, 60,000 buy new batteries from you each year"
equates to selling *2OO plus* individual batteries each & every working DAY of the year

Are my maths wrong or do batteries (on average) last 10 years? yes it's a question for clarification

Maîneÿ . .