AGM battery SOC

[mtlakejim]

Originally Posted by AZ Traveler

Jim,

Your truck will keep your batteries up as you travel or you can shut the fridge down for 8 hours or so and it will still stay cold. How big is your battery bank?

The battery monitor is primarily a boondocking tool.

These are relatively inexpensive batteries compared to Li.

Well we are currently stuck in one place for next couple years so in the short term it doesn't matter. I was just wondering for long term. But we will never ever boondock at least not without a BIG generator to run the whole rig so I guess we are ok.

Mainly I was just wondering if I had wasted my money buying the AGMs......and if there was some maintenance I should be doing to preserve them.


Then again when you full time EVERYTHING matters........

[sunshine 1]

PNW Fireguy, thanks a lot for your offer to help me with the battery monitor. I don't know if I will be there. I have never attended any MOC rallies, I am a RV newbie
I am at Quartszite right now, planning to stay here a couple of weeks.

[PNW Fireguy]

You should be able to find a few folks there that can both show you how they installed and perhaps even lend a hand.

[sunshine 1]

I am not at the MOC rally, didn't know before last night that they had one here lol.

[steiny93]

Originally Posted by mtlakejim

Are AGM batteries more likely to have issues with deterioration due to wide swings in charge %? I thought these high dollar batteries were several steps better than lead acids?

That part above; in my experience yes, the AGM's really don't like large SOC incidents.

If the usage pattern is deep discharge then top and repeat; the traditional deep cycle batteries do well (granted they need to be maintained both acid level and charging). AGM's don't care for deep discharges (granted traditional batteries do better with shallower discharges, AGM's are more impacted).

I've run multiple sets of traditional deep cycle and large agm banks in boats for trolling motor usage. If you monitor the fluid level in traditional they will out perform agms for longevity. If you do nothing to the batteries (ignore the levels as example) the agms might nose ahead. agms are nice as they don't gas or leak, but it isn't universally a win.

[oeeman]

LOL - got a good chuckle on that!

[TLightning]

With AGMs you need a ''smart'' charger and a controller that can program the charger for AGM specific settings....they are different than lead acid.

[margerush]

We have an AGM battery and I'd like to get an AGM battery charger. Any suggestions on a not too expensive AGM charger. We have a battery tender hooked up to the battery right now but this same battery tender overcharged our first lead acid battery, so I don't trust it. I don't want to mess up this expensive AGM battery. eTrailer has an $85 charger that does everything, I don't need a multi-tasker.