Greg,

I guess I am surprised that with all the respect that Trojan has that the bank needs replacing after only 7 years. My Sam's
Club Druacells are 8 now and are only down to about 90% of the original capacity. They will have to get to 80% before I will replace the bank.

Matt - ensconced at Bean Station

Matt Colie wrote on Fri, 05 May 2017 08:24

Greg,

I guess I am surprised that with all the respect that Trojan has that the bank needs replacing after only 7 years. My Sam's
Club Druacells are 8 now and are only down to about 90% of the original capacity. They will have to get to 80% before I will replace the bank.

Matt - ensconced at Bean Station

Its not the quality of the Trojan batteries, it is a matter of charge management. Chronic undercharging without even actually discharging them too deep can lower the life to two years or less. Getting them COMPLETELY charged at least once a week (and never discharging them too deep) can extend the life expectancy to over ten years. Check this page and note the voltage for bulk charging in the "Charging" section:

http://www.trojanbattery.com/tech-support/battery-maintenance/

Also download the users guide pdf and note that table 4 says the same thing, but includes an "absorption" setting.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/TrojanBattery_UsersGuide.pdf

Ever wonder how hybrid cars get more than 10 years out of the batteries? Charge management.

...i'm not a devotee to the Trojan brand., and i'll surely peruse the suggestions and prices, thanks!
Greg

Most batteries sold in the US are US made of North American made. ...

<snip>
cheers all,.
Greg / Los Angeles / '76 custom cut-down Birch / '78 Eleganza II

Now that a big batch of the Birchhaven projects are done (bodywork, cooling and steering)
its time to turn attentions back to the Eleganza projects later this month.

So we're considering same-sized T-125's, or going Costco, or Interstate http://www.interstatebatteries.com/m/category/golf/golf-car-content or even this "US" brand that we heard good things about http://www.batterytown.com/us-battery-us125xc-6v-deep-cycle-golf-cart-battery.html
With the onboard studio, our electric needs (without generator noise) are a bit more extreme than most,
but this time around we gotta keep costs low-as-possible, so any first-hand reviews/prices on deep cycles (in SoCal) to fit our GMC front compartments (w/Ragusa battery trays) would of course be appreciated, thanks!

And instead of re-using the kinda fragile terminal extenders (which extend upwards from the battery post, allowing more connections to the post, while making everything too cramped up there), this time i'm gonna have to find a few junction/mounts for all the heavy-duty cable connections (and i'll need 3 of them, one for each positive post of each battery pair), and each one has to be able to handle a size range from 4 gauge to 4/0, including: the solar connections, the 0 gauge for connecting parallel pairs of batteries up front, and then the monster 4/0 runs for going to the inverter. Might have to build my own junction boxes, 'cause between searching Grainger and high-end car stereo install places, i'm not seeing any commercially available options that handle up to 4/0. Any ideas where else i can look? ideally they'd be shielded with see-through plastic. And ideally they'd mount on top of the fiberglass recess for the headlights, with a heavy-duty pig-tail running to the positive post.

cheers all,.
Greg / Los Angeles / '76 custom cut-down Birch / '78 Eleganza II