New Golf cart batteries

My present golf cart batteries are US2200, 232 amp battieries. There are 4 of them, 7 years old and are showing their age. Won't hold a good charge over night after I have the inverter on and watched a movie on TV. So if I am going to buy new batteries should I stick with my US2200, or go with Crown 235 or the Trojan equivilant. I'd like to hear the consensus out there.

I have a 150 amp alternator, Xantrax 2000 msw inverter/charger. 6 cubic foot norcold refregerator, an onan 3k genset and Webasto 3500 airtop furnace that is fussy about low voltgage. Plus the usual lights on a 1981 Marine Trader 41, tri-cabin trawler. Pretty standard stuff. I also have a start battery that is working fine.

Start with installing a SOC meter .

You cant manage the batts with out a gas gauge to know what is going on.

Here is one example,

For price and quality Trojan is hard to beat. Order them with Flag terminals if you can.


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Save your old batteries for trade in cores. They are worth $20+ depending on where you buy. Found TrojanT-105s for $93 plus $20 core charge if you don't have an old battery to trade in.

Ted

Trojans seem to give me longer service than other brands that I have used. I can't give the data to back up this claim but 30 years of marine house bank and RV house bank experience stored in my head leaves this unsupported opinion!

You can't go wrong with Trojans.

Smart Gauge Battery Monitoring Unit Photo Gallery by Compass Marine How To at pbase.com

I really liked the US Battery L16s I had in my inverter bank. Lasted many more cycles than expected. The only reason I replaced them with similar Trojans was price from a local shop.

I agree with adding a battery meter.

I dealt with Trojan batteries for years maintaining and running various industrial and janitorial equipment.All most all of the equipment had 105 batteries.I stand by them.I had no problems getting a long life out of them, while using them daily.I know one floor machine had 105's that lasted at over 10 years with nothing more than general maintenance and proper charging.It was ran daily,except Sundays.That's all I did to the machine the entire time it was in my care.Our heavily used equipment averaged 7 years on their battery banks.

On another note.I do seriously believe in their remote auto watering system in situations where access to checking the battery's electrolyte levels would be difficult.A few of our machines had them and the add on tank which I think was 3 gallons.

Trojans seem to be the popular battery

I do have a remote basic meter that you can get with Xantrax, the one with all the coloured bars. But an upgrade in the meter department will probably be on my winter project list.

I believe my fresh water pump that is cycling to much is probably due to low voltage. The over cycling usually happens once we have been at anchor for a while.

My boat just came in for the season today and so I will probably buy new batteries at the January boat show promotions unless I find a really good deal in Vancouver before then. It looks like Trojan 105s are around $160.00 in the Vancouver area.

It's hard to beat Trojans, but they can be a little pricey. I have 220AH Costco Golf Cart batteries made by Interstate which I bought for about 40% less than Trojans. They have been trouble-free for 3 1/2 years and I'm hoping for another 3-5 years service.

Last time I looked several months ago, they were selling at Costco for around US $90.

The Costco/interstate GC batteries are 84.00 with a 15.00 core. That price is in Gig Harbor WA.

Any south sounds (Puget Sound) guys on here with a good location to purchase batteries?

Interstate is not a manufacturer, they are a marketer and distributor. Their GCs are made by US Battery, I believe. Here is a good attempt at sorting out the various brands and actual manufacturers:

Lead-Acid Battery Manufacturers and Brand Names List 2014

For generic GCs it is hard to beat Costco or Sam's. Or, of course, a big golf cart distributor. If I lived in the PNW the first and probably last brand I would be looking at is Dyno; local and great quality.

Dyno Battery - Premium Quality Battery Manufacturing - Made in the USA

Cal...
Awesome cross reference list thanks for providing

That cross ref list should be a sticky. Thanks for posting it.

West Marine Batteries = Trojans?

If I am reading that correctly Trojan makes Westmarine batteries. Has any one tried the stupidly expensive lithium batteries?

FlyWright said:

It's hard to beat Trojans, but they can be a little pricey. I have 220AH Costco Golf Cart batteries made by Interstate which I bought for about 40% less than Trojans. They have been trouble-free for 3 1/2 years and I'm hoping for another 3-5 years service.

Last time I looked several months ago, they were selling at Costco for around US $90.

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Al, at 220ah, am I right they must be 8Ds? Are they 12v or 6? $90 I wish, conventional 220Ah 8Ds here are $300+.
The IG has a peculiar system, one 12v 8D per engine, no dedicated house, it doubles as start/house. No where obvious to put a house set up. Thank goodness for solar and the Onan.

BruceK said:

Al, at 220ah, am I right they must be 8Ds? Are they 12v or 6? $90 I wish, conventional 220Ah 8Ds here are $300+.
The IG has a peculiar system, one 12v 8D per engine, no dedicated house, it doubles as start/house. No where obvious to put a house set up. Thank goodness for solar and the Onan.

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Bruce, they're 220AH at 6V. A pair in series provides 220AH at 12V. Parallel 3 series pairs and you get 660AH at 12V. Fortunate for me, the 6 GC batteries fit in my 2 8D house battery boxes.

How about a smaller start battery (group 31) and make the 8Ds the house bank?

dwhatty said:

That cross ref list should be a sticky. Thanks for posting it.

Click to expand...

I agree David so I just stickies this thread.

Perhaps we should start a "Best of" thread for links to all things electrical or electronic in this forum and we can stick all these kind of links in it without any follow up posts?

grahamdougladd said:

If I am reading that correctly Trojan makes Westmarine batteries.

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In my experience, West Marine brand batteries are made by East Penn (Deka). I've bought their AGM's from a local industrial batt supplier, far cheaper than the WM price. Sometimes they are labeled WM, sometimes Deka.

RCook said:

In my experience, West Marine brand batteries are made by East Penn (Deka). I've bought their AGM's from a local industrial batt supplier, far cheaper than the WM price. Sometimes they are labeled WM, sometimes Deka.

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Most were (also referenced in Darden's doc), but I think Trojan did a couple for them at one point.

Looks like West is also selling Northstar batteries now, which is an OEM and a good brand.

I think you'd have to be pretty desperate to buy batteries from West, price wise.

I am a new trawler owner and presently wired with two 8D on a perko 1, 2 or all switch as house batteries, they are also wired in as the starting battery for a cummins 6B turbo. I don't really know the age of the batteries. I have a completely separate starting battery for the generator. Battery charger is a Xantrex true charge 40+ multistage.

One 8D tests just fine (looks newer too) but I need to replace the other 8D. I thought I would replace one with golf cart batteries. Does anyone see an issue?

We replaced 2 8Ds with six Trojan 105s and put a couple pieces of 1/2" marine plywood (16" X 6 X width of the new batteries) in the battery box to get the battery cover above the taller Trojans.

We did this and hooked two of them up as start and four of them as house, but always run them all together and wish we had wired them that way because it's simpler/cheaper. One advantage in separating them is that if there is a bad cell you can isolate some of them.

Batteries like to be all discharged and charged together, so with this plan they don't discharge as far down and you theoretically have 690 amp hours, but realistically half of that at your disposal. Should one be dumb enough to drop the voltage of the combined bank so far that the engine won't start (I did that once with my old 8Ds) just fire up the genset with its dedicated battery and you'll start up right away. Most old-timers will advise against this practice but we've done this for 25,000 miles and will do it this way next time.

And we equalize every month or so when we are cruising.

Capt Jeff on Adirondack
currently in New Bern, NC

I wouldn't recommend mixing battery types and ages in the same bank. How about keeping the good 8D as your start battery in a new box and using the current 2 8D boxes for a 6 GC battery house bank?

This worked for me. Start battery for generator on 35 watt solar panel. Stand alone, no charger, genset running then charged from genset. Totally separate from the rest. Only for genset. Stashed are long heavy jumper cables for extreme emergency. That makes for lots of redundancy.

Take the best 8d and make it the main start battery. If your charger does more than 1 bank then do not combine and let your charger flip from start to house, not combined. Otherwise get a controller and make it so, or another panel for the start. I have 10 golf cart for house, start separate but combinable.

Your genset battery is your lifeline. So I like mine stand alone, in all aspects.

Thank you for the thoughts, I am still trying to figure out how it is all wired. Each battery 1, 2 and the generator battery are connected to three different poles on the charger so conceivably each should be managed separately by the charger. But I also understand if one of the three is weak, the charger may not manage all appropriately. Is this a correct statement?

My next step is to access the status of each and probably replace both 8D with golf cart batteries in series. I am not sure how the generator start battery fits into the charging system. It is obviously getting charged by the charger and it is also electrically separate from both 1 and 2 on my perko switch as it doesn't run any lights of electronics nor start the engine when the selector on the perko is set to off. Not sure if the generator/alternator does any charging of the gen set battery.

What fun, anew boat is a new career in electrical systems (among others). I recently became aware that in researching and purchasing the boat that I may have glossed over in my mind the challenges of ownership but I will absolutely positively get there!

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grahamdouglass said:

I do have a remote basic meter that you can get with Xantrax, the one with all the coloured bars. But an upgrade in the meter department will probably be on my winter project. <snip>

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Graham, our Xantrex 2000 fried a few months ago and has been replaced with new everything. So I have the whole Xantrex remote controller / SOC meter in a box, carefully removed and ready for reinstallation. You want it? You can have it for the cost to ship it to you. It will come with the manual so you know how to install and use it.

The only thing you'll need to add is an appropriately rated DC shunt.

Let me know if you want it (via email: basmith@wildfire.net).

I get all my batts from “Battery + Bulbs”. Good prices and great service. Local dealer - where the owner as well as employees are at your service. If purchasing a group of batts (multipable of same type or of different types) incentives will be offered and price adjustments are available upon request. At least that’s how it is in our local store! I’ve had zero proble with their batts and not one failure over six years with all still going strong.

Batteries Plus Bulbs and Battery Store – Find Battery for laptop, auto, cell phone, SLA, and more - light bulb and LED - Recycling and Sales

Their batteries are manufactured by East Penn.

East Penn Manufacturing – The world's largest single site, family-owned lead-acid battery manufacturer

I agree with the above posts re: your gen set battery being your back-up if other banks fail. A member of another forum gave me a great idea re: wiring of the separate gen set battery - for those with an on-off batt sw for the gen set - by replacing it with a 1-2-all-off switch and adding one jumper to the start / house bank you gain a tremendous amount of flexibility in combining / isolating banks - 1) ability to charge gen batt from alternator while running, 2) ability to use the house bank to start gen set if needed /desired, 3) ability to use the gen set to supplement start/house banks if needed in an emergency

Also - for those that do not have the house charger capability to charge the gen set batty separately (3 or more bank charger) you can "top off" the gen set batt periodically by combining w/ start or house on a temporary basis.

Some stash a set of jumper cables to allow the above if needed (that was my plan until I was given the above recommendation) the above plan lets you do what you would do w/ jumpers from your battery sw panel for a very modest price and little effort... I have a new switch on order and have it on my To Do list for spring commissioning.

Thank you for your responses

I started this thread to find out what the favourite battery might by from you die hard trawler owners. The overwhelming response was for Trojans, but there was a boat show deal that favoured Crown 235 that were sold by Edmonds Batteries in Burnaby B.C. The Crowns are made in Ohio. I thank you for your help, and especially thank Brian Smith who sent me a Link 2000. The install is still on my list.