Which Batteries To Buy?

Before you buy new batteries check out the charger. Sounds as if you have a over voltage problem

Greg

If you do need batteries, the Fullriver batteries from Alco (one of our supporters) have been good for us

As you are going to be on 240v for the next 12 months you don’t really need batteries. I don’t know about the 12v system on the van, whether it will operate without a battery. I suspect not but can it operate on one as wired? As Greg says have the charger tested because once the batteries reach full charge it should trickle charge only. If it is OK then one or more batteries have a fault. But if it was me I would then check to see if the van can run on just the one battery and have no detrimental effect to the 12v system. As you are connected to 240v you don’t need a large amount of battery storage, in fact a standard car battery should be ample. So if the batteries are cactus one $150 battery would suffice. You would expect it to be at 100% charge most of the time.

Cheers
Les

G'day Jan and Easy,

Having had a lot of leaking problems with the Bushtracker supplied AGM's...The last ones died at the beginning of this year.....I decided to be a BT Guinea Pig and try out the Optima Spiral Cell Batteries. Whilst I did consider the Fullriver's from ALCO, I really felt that the possible advantages of the Optima's claim of being "15 times less susceptible to vibration damage" was worth considering. They are only 75 amp hour and weigh 9kg lighter than the BT AGM's. They are very expensive at $480 each.

So, here's the first report.

We have had the batteries for 8 months and have been on the road for three months. All of May (Corner Country and Flinders) and then September-October, (Japarit Muster- Macksville and the New England Tablelands). About half of that time we were not on 240v power, so relied on solar, car alternator and a few occasions with the generator when the voltage dropped to below 12.3 and the amber light came on in the Pro-star 30 regulator. The Honda got the batteries up to 13.8 in less than an hour. This was at Japarit after we had been off power for 6 days.

Of course we won't be able to recommend that they are the best buy until we see how long they last. But so far we are very impressed.

We see the advantages of the Optima's as being:-

1. They are very quick to recharge.
2. They are 15 times less susceptible to vibrations.
3. They don't leak and can be mounted lying on their side if need be.
4. They are lighter....... 3 batteries saves 27 kg.

They disadvantages are:-

1. They are expensive.

Some may say that being only 75 AH would be a disadvantage, but our experience so far has been that they perform just as well as out previous BT 130AH AGM's.

Rob and Liz

Had our BT electrics gutted and correctly done 2 years past. The contractor was expert at fixing BT electrics who described the BT electrical setup as utter crap. Installed 2 xtra panels at same time. When on power batteries do nothing. BT battery charger got dumped as described of dubious to poor quality. Dumped or changed a lot of equipment and flogged it to other BT owners as replacements. Since the new install everything electrical has been bliss. Previously constant battery failures. Money well well spent. 1 1/2 yrs past had the plumbing system rehashed for the better. John Guest fittings make things easy.

In order to comply with the request made by Zil his membership has been terminated.

Members may also be interested to know that the details supplied as part of Zil’s registration process are suspect to say the least.

Bob