Pleasant and successful BT factory visit this week

There is also a couple of 14 footers listed , one which has a picture . I think that would be the perfect BT for me , as I travel by myself on out of the way tracks. I wonder if the factory would still accept orders for them .

Angie ,
A cunning idea and I will do that .
Thanks ,
Willie .

I wish all people were as good to deal with as Steve. He tells you what you need to know not what you want to hear.

any chance of posting some photos of these?

Rob ,

It seems you and the Silver Fox have solved the problem . I will go down to the hardware store and Whitworth's , to see what they have that would suit .

I gather the box is screwed to the floor . It is going to be hard to work on , without taking it out of the hatch .

Thanks to all for the info and thanks Angie for the idea of the perspex lid .

Cheers ,

Willie .

PS I am off now to look at the Archives for some posts on battery faults . I was given no information regarding the batteries at the factory . I do not know what the warranty is or what my duty is in maintaining them . I will email Steven Gibbs and ask him for this information .

Yes - Like the idea of the catches! Nice one Silver Fox!
We are at the final stage of rebuilding the box due to leakage problems. Have resin coated the inside of the rebuilt box, then painted it and will put in a black Forticon (builders Plastic) lining before re- installing.
The screws holding the box to the floor had ceased being effective and so we need to fill the large wear holes left by them and then because we do not have a water tank directly under the batteries etc we will be using 1/4" BSW "T" nuts under the floor and C/S head screws through box & floor to hold the box in place!
Need then to re-seal the under floor (which is due any way). Been a long job, but should be better! Cheers - Ian & Sally

After driving the Gibb River Road the 4 x8g screws securing the battery box had jig -sawed their way along the ply floor by 50 mm . I replaced them with 8 x 12g screws and 4 x 8mm c/s bolts and nyloc nuts. This should keep the 120kg of batteries in place.
Regards AL

Did you also check the battery prices on that site?

FULLRIVER or ALCO DC SLA 100 A/H AGM Battery $410.00

Makes our BOG deal of $267 88 (+ GST) look even better.

Bob

Rick ,

I bought this website to the notice of all the electrical gurus on Exploroz and was laughed at . They said he was pushing his own barrow and that some of his articles were not fair comment .

As an electrical idiot myself , I thought it all looked and sounded rather good though .

Cheers ,

Willie .

It sounded fair enough to me as well. Some of it no doubt is true, such as the issues of inadequate cable sizes and that deep discharging reduces battery life.
Can the "electrical gurus" give us a technical rebuttal of what they believe are the key porkpies? That's what forums are about. It's a bit like the Sci-Fi movies or the X-files where the line went "The truth is out there". It's out there somewhere but zeroing in on it can be a problem!
Some of the key points this fellow has made (and which should be corrected if wrong) include:
* AGM batteries don't vent (i.e. are spillproof) and can be laid on their side etc
* Car alternators (or ordinary battery chargers) only recharge the car batteries or wet deep cycle (WDC) batteries to 70% to 80% of actual full charge
* A car alternator will take 8 to 12 hours to recharge a deeply discharged deep-cycle battery
* Deep cycle batteries are only designed to be discharged to 50%, i.e. the "useful" amp-hours is only about 50% of the nameplate values. "Deep discharges" (i.e. below 50%) reduce the life of the battery dramatically
* AGM batteries will handle "deep discharges" better than WDC batteries
* For maximum (indefinite) life out of any deep cycle battery (AGM or WDC), there should be sufficient batteries that the "daily discharge depth is only about 20% to 25% [This implies a trade-off to me; more batteries means less discharge so a much longer life, but at the expense of higher up-front cost and lugging more batteries around all the time]
* A standard Honday generator does a poor job of charging batteries, but the "specific purpose" Honda petrol battery charger does a good job, achieving 100% charge of the batteries (the same as a well-designed solar panel/regulator system or a 240 volt "smart 3 stage" charger)
* If using a standard Honda generator, it is better to charge batteries using a smart-charger on the 240 volt output then to the batteries
* AGM batteries can be charged in 2.5 to 3 hours
* AGM batteries (unlike WDC batteries) can be left idle for 12 months and then be fully charged, without ill effect

I do know some other specialists in this area, so I'll put these questions to them myself also.
Rick