Great Seminar on batteries for boats

[rsn48]

I was initially going to use a title something like, great video for introduction to boat batteries, but at the half way point, the presenter - Jeff Cote from Pacific Yachting Systems - gets more technical and more experienced boat battery type people may still benefit. If this is you, jump to about half way through.

If you are a newbie and want a good intro to boat batteries, the pro's and con's of each, start from the beginning.

This video was taken from a seminar I missed attending as snow moved in and affected transportation back on a BC Ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo so I couldn't make this seminar. Glad I found this. I just bought but not yet installed six 12 volt Fire Fly batteries on my boat, replacing relatively new golf cart batteries.

 

[DavidM]

I watched the video, at least from midpoint to the Q/A session. I thought it was pretty good, but omitted one critical factor in the proper care and feeding of batteries:

He talked about FLA, AGM and Firefly batteries cycling from 20, 30 or 50% to 85% routinely and never said that that was a problem. It is.

You have to fully charge your batteries up to 100% every 3-4 days, otherwise while sitting charged to 85% sulfate compounds will slough off of the plates and fall to the bottom of the battery. At best you will lose capacity as these compounds sit on the bottom. At worst they will build up and short the plates, killing the batteries.

The best way to solve this if cruising full time is to have a solar panel system rated at about 3-5% of the battery capacity in max amperage output that will charge those batteries up to 100% on a sunny day.

David

 

[O C Diver]

Watched the video and felt it was overall informative. Clearly he pushes what he wants to sell. The two thing I did find misleading were life cycles of FLA batteries and not being able to routinely charge them above 85%. The level to which you can charge them is a function of your charging system and how you cruise. I believe he stated that charging them to only 85% and then drawing them down to 50 % only gave about a 300 cycle life, which may be true. But if you charge them completely and don't draw them down below 70%, the cycle life goes into the thousands.

Ted

 

[Gordon J]

Not quite right

I watched the video, at least from midpoint to the Q/A session. I thought it was pretty good, but omitted one critical factor in the proper care and feeding of batteries:

He talked about FLA, AGM and Firefly batteries cycling from 20, 30 or 50% to 85% routinely and never said that that was a problem. It is.

You have to fully charge your batteries up to 100% every 3-4 days, otherwise while sitting charged to 85% sulfate compounds will slough off of the plates and fall to the bottom of the battery. At best you will lose capacity as these compounds sit on the bottom. At worst they will build up and short the plates, killing the batteries.

The best way to solve this if cruising full time is to have a solar panel system rated at about 3-5% of the battery capacity in max amperage output that will charge those batteries up to 100% on a sunny day.

David

Carbon foam batteries, ala firefly, don’t care. Read the report from practical sailor. Let sit for months st 30 percent, they still come back.

 

[FF]

"At best you will lose capacity as these compounds sit on the bottom. At worst they will build up and short the plates, killing the batteries."


The extra space for crap at the bottom of the plates is one of the differences between deep cycle and start batts.