Charger upgrade

[wildebus]

Hmm... just been advised that the Yuassa YBX5019 is not a leisure battery... damn!

Both batteries were fitted new about 3 months before I bought the van, so less than a year old. I'm hoping that as we mainly use ehu pitches and don't drain the battery too deeply, it will suffice for now?

K

Yuasa are a funny company. They make excellent batteries but if you compare the quoted specifications with other brands they come out very middling. I think they are a brand that tends to over-deliver rather than over-promise

 

[Geek]

If the van is being trickle-charged over winter, it is worth considering connecting the starter and habitation batteries together with a wire (assuming they are similar battery chemistry).

You want them both to be charged and you don't need to keep the starter battery as a reserve for getting going.

The only proviso is that they ought to be at about the same voltage when you connect them.

 

[Geek]

Yuasa are a funny company. They make excellent batteries but if you compare the quoted specifications with other brands they come out very middling. I think they are a brand that tends to over-deliver rather than over-promise

I think they are just plain honest. An increasingly rare trait in a world dominated by Chinese specifications.

 

[Vanterrier]

So in practical real life terms what would be the difference between this YBX5019 100AH battery and a good quality lead acid 100 ah proper leisure battery if I went off grid for a couple of nights with no ehu, using lights, 2 showers each morning, TV for a couple of hours each night plus bits and bobs like phone charging, igniting gas hob/oven and fridge, water heater and diesel space heater.
What would I notice?
K

 

[Geek]

You should not notice any difference. Your batteries are better than most leisure batteries in any case.

A 100Ah battery should be a 100Ah battery.

However batteries sold as leisure batteries are rated at a 20 hour rate, meaning that's the capacity if totally discharged* at a rate that takes 20 hours to empty them.

A more normal battery is tested at a 10 hour rate.

The difference is between 5% and 10%. So a 100Ah leisure battery is probably the same capacity as a 90Ah to 95Ah starter battery.

Your batteries are from a more honest maker, so they probably deliver what it says on the label, or a bit more.

If you were comparing yours to a deep cycle battery, there is a bigger difference.

Deep cycle battery plates are thicker and designed to cope with deeper cycling.

* Don't do this at home: you can probably discharge a leisure battery to 0% two or three times before it is scrap.

A normal 'leisure' battery will probably manage 100 deep cycles (discharging to 40% full) whereas a proper deep cycle one should manage 500 to 1000 or more.

There should be a published cycle life specification for every model of battery, but they tend to be well hidden because the numbers are so poor.