Aluminium air battery

Sharpie said:
Okta, I think that your starter battery drain in storage might be mostly down to the base vehicle. My Ducato for example will flatten the very big starter battery in less than a month. I've checked how much the steady drain is, can't remember the numbers, but it is lots.

I expect most other modern vehicles are similar.

A Ducato for example keeps all the complex vehicle electronics and busses live, all the time. They do however provide a simple isolator on the battery to turn all that off. You have to rummage in the battery compartment to access it. There is some complexity before and after you have done so e.g making sure that you have locked the doors with the central locking, with the battery still connected, before isolating it, then exiting through the drivers' door and turning the key. Accessing the battery hatch is easy from the nearside, but that won't help, because you first have to close that door, trip the locks, then isolate whilst grovelling on the floor. No such trouble on an LHD version.

Since you have other things to keep powered such as a Tracker, well that's another matter. I'd be surprised if they were a significant drain.
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I would rather not shut down any of the base vehicle electronics. These days they even attach a temporary battery when changing the engine battery to avoid rebooting everything. The quiescent currents all add up but I would not like to be without the tracker, alarm or base vehicle immobiliser. I think my insurance company would have wriggle room if any of them were switched off and that is too big a risk. I am lucky enough to have the kit and happy to use it.
 
Okta said:
I know that LiFePO4 is not the answer for everyone and they are expensive but they have not been “£1000 a pop“ for a while now. Even 3 years ago I bought my 100Ah Relion for £900 and I suspect I could get one a fair bit cheaper now. Unlike a lead acid battery a single Li cell failure would not take down the whole battery. My Relion is wired as 20 parallel banks of 4 cells in series, so a single cell failure would take out 4 cells and knock 5Ah off the total capacity. That is why they are marketed for military applications. Discharging my battery to 100% reduces the cycle life to 600, similar to the claims made for the lead crystal one linked above. At a more sensible 50-80% discharge the LI is very significantly better than the lead crystal. The Li also has a battery management system that will protect it from low discharge damage. You can get a few quid for recycling a lead acid battery but the chemicals in a LiFePO4 battery are less hazardous and present less of a long term environmental hazard.

I am certainly not knocking the lead crystal battery, it looks interesting. However there are some false LiFePO4 myths out there because they seem to get confused with other types of Li-ion batteries, with different chemistries.

As for a battery failure in a remote location the Li can just as easily be replaced with a local lead acid one as any other battery. It would not cause a premature end to my holiday.
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From Van**** Website Life04 Battery RRP £1250 they suggest you buy TWO

Victron Energy Super Cycle Battery by the look of it you could buy 3 and still be cheaper than one Lithium Battery. It will also be less expensive to install as it is an AGM battery and will not require any special charging. You will also get a reading of remaining capacity based on voltage which is missing with a Lithium Battery
 
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QFour said:
From Van**** Website Life04 Battery RRP £1250 they suggest you buy TWO

Victron Energy Super Cycle Battery by the look of it you could buy 3 and still be cheaper than one Lithium Battery. It will also be less expensive to install as it is an AGM battery and will not require any special charging. You will also get a reading of remaining capacity based on voltage which is missing with a Lithium Battery
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Why would I buy 2 at £1250 when 1 at £660 would suit my purposes fine? As I have said before LiFePO4 is not the answer to everyones needs. Over the years I have used wet lead acid, AGM, Gel and LiFePO4 leisure batteries. I would not use AGM again but the others might have their place, however LiFePO4 suits my purposes best at present. I find the steadier voltage output of Li perfectly acceptable, it just operates in a slightly higher and narrower range. I would also argue that LiFePO4 charge levels are easier to monitor because of the higher charging efficiency, very low Peukerts component and negligible self discharge. The Victron battery you have linked to has even higher charging voltages and is further outside the parameters of most standard chargers than my LiFePO4.
 
Okta said:
Why would I buy 2 at £1250 when 1 at £660 would suit my purposes fine? As I have said before LiFePO4 is not the answer to everyones needs. Over the years I have used wet lead acid, AGM, Gel and LiFePO4 leisure batteries. I would not use AGM again but the others might have their place, however LiFePO4 suits my purposes best at present. I find the steadier voltage output of Li perfectly acceptable, it just operates in a slightly higher and narrower range. I would also argue that LiFePO4 charge levels are easier to monitor because of the higher charging efficiency, very low Peukerts component and negligible self discharge. The Victron battery you have linked to has even higher charging voltages and is further outside the parameters of most standard chargers than my LiFePO4.
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Why not use AGM again, what was the issue?
 
izwozral said:
Why not use AGM again, what was the issue?
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AGM was standard on my Hymer when I bought it but it didn’t seem to hold charge very well. I am not alone in being disappointed in the life and performance of AGM. In fairness to the battery it was probably not getting the higher voltage needed to keep it at peak performance. The Elektroblock only had Gel and wet settings which are passable for most battery types (including LiFePO4) but probably not ideal for AGM which really need a higher voltage absorption phase. Take look at the Victron link given by QFour at #44 above.
 
Yes AGM does require a different regime, I too was disappointed with my van, made by Dethleffs, that has an Electrobloc with a pretty basic charger that is quite adequate for wet lead cells, gel, and I think also Lithium.

The very expensive Banner AGM originally fitted lasted less than 18 months and failed suddenly, no graceful degradation. It could never have been charged correctly by the Electrobloc, nor the vehicle alternator, I subsequently realised. Totally misconceived. And no, they did not honour any warranty, after wasting several hours trying and being given the runaround I decided that my time, and stress levels didn't need that. Lesson learned.

I did more research and Alpha batteries supplied a pair of their own brand AGMs that used a different charging regime more suited to the Electrobloc which were far better and actually gave me seven years of good service, slowly degrading as expected. Much better than I anticipated.

They are now replaced with sealed wet cells (from Alpha), but it is too early to give an opinion yet.

Some AGMs are actually designed for stop-start engine duty in very sophisticated vehicles such as BMW, Mercedes, where the alternator is both a charger and a regenerative braking device, they are typically cycled between say 80% and full, the alternator is very smart and will shove in massive power at over 15.5 V at times. They are supposed to handle this. Nevertheless all this cleverness seems to have it's problems and the likes of MB and BMW are moving back to other tried and trusted stuff. The warranty claims for the failed starter batteries were too much, failures in less than a year. Even just changing one requires the system to be told, re-calibrated, not a DIY job, even dealers didn't understand it.

I have been happy with AGMs, but they are not all the same and need to be treated nicely.
 
This has been a good informative thread, possibly the best on the subject of batteries, so far. Some of it went over my head but that's down to me being a short arse and thick.
I no sooner think, 'right, that's the battery for me', then it gets knocked off top of the list when new information seeps into the old grey matter. This has happened a few times so basically I'm just going round in circles! 🙃

Anyway, I am in no real rush to change batteries yet but will refer back to this thread when the time comes.

Thanks one and all for your inputs.
 
izwozral said:
This has been a good informative thread, possibly the best on the subject of batteries, so far. Some of it went over my head but that's down to me being a short arse and thick.
I no sooner think, 'right, that's the battery for me', then it gets knocked off top of the list when new information seeps into the old grey matter. This has happened a few times so basically I'm just going round in circles! 🙃

Anyway, I am in no real rush to change batteries yet but will refer back to this thread when the time comes.

Thanks one and all for your inputs.
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That’s almost exactly where I stand! I’ll need to sort two (or three) batteries for springtime. Trouble is, if you wait for a definitive, cast-iron perfect solution, you never get anywhere - there’s ALWAYS some tech on the horizon that is touted to solve all problems for all people. I know lithium has its devotees but there are some cautionary tales out there too. I’m thinking that I’ll go the more conventional route and then see how the land lies a couple of years down the road.
 
There is no best solution that will suit everyone, we all have different needs and expectations. For me LiFePO4 suits very well but I don’t doubt that there are other solutions that would suit me well enough. My second choice would be a good quality Gel and I probably wouldn’t notice that much difference in daily use. No harm in following a conventional route, we don’t all need to pioneer new technologies at the same time. The great thing about this site is we can share our experiences and learn from each other.
 
colinmd said:
We had a Banner AGM battery charged by a EBL99 and solar (not trough the electroblock) it gave 8 years good service.
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Possibly it was your solar charger that looked after it. Or I just got a dud. I too have an EBL99, when the original Banner failed prematurely I did a lot of research and found many tales of woe from other people with the same setup, a lot of Hymer owners for example had similar tales.

As said, I have been very pleased with my AGMs (not Banner) and was going to simply replace them with the same again, but perhaps foolishly decided to try something different (Varta LFD) this time. If I get seven more years out of the new ones I will be very happy. At £200 for the pair that's £30/year, which is not a lot really in the grand scheme of things.
 
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Sharpie said:
Possibly it was your solar charger that looked after it. Or I just got a dud. I too have an EBL99, when the original Banner failed prematurely I did a lot of research and found many tales of woe from other people with the same setup, a lot of Hymer owners for example had similar tales.

As said, I have been very pleased with my AGMs (not Banner) and was going to simply replace them with the same again, but perhaps foolishly decided to try something different (Varta LFD) this time. If I get seven more years out of the new ones I will be very happy. At £200 for the pair that's £30/year, which is not a lot really in the grand scheme of things.
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I have heard of many incedances of the Banner AGM's failing early, either we where very lucky, or as you say the solar looked after it, I'm beginning to suspect the latter, despite some experts telling me the set up was wrong.
I have replaced the 90Ah Banner AGM with two 75Ah Varta LFD's, time will tell if this was a good move or not.
 
R0B said:
I don’t think any battery can really be discharged to 100% repeatedly, it always impacts on useful life.
This might be an interesting alternative to lithium.
Big name brand, 4 year warranty and a third of the price - not forgetting of course the member discount from our friends at Alpha :)

https://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/12v-victron-100ah-super-cycle-agm-battery-bat412110081/
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anybody tried these? they would suit what I need down to the ground: most of the time a single 100ah battery is enough, discharged to 50%, but just now and then I would value the full 100ah. So I was thinking I’d need 2 100ah batteries at about £200, but one of these, at about £290 would be a good option, given it saves space and weight.
 
colinmd said:
I have heard of many incedances of the Banner AGM's failing early, either we where very lucky, or as you say the solar looked after it, I'm beginning to suspect the latter, despite some experts telling me the set up was wrong.
I have replaced the 90Ah Banner AGM with two 75Ah Varta LFD's, time will tell if this was a good move or not.
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All depends on what charger you use,a 5 stage smart unit is best,many units fitted in vans are sh one t.
 
QFour said:
From Van**** Website Life04 Battery RRP £1250 they suggest you buy TWO
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Lol, thanks for pointing that out, i'll get that changed straight away. That was the price when they were launched, have come down since then. I'm presuming that was on the main Lithium info page?
 
MarkJ said:
anybody tried these? they would suit what I need down to the ground: most of the time a single 100ah battery is enough, discharged to 50%, but just now and then I would value the full 100ah. So I was thinking I’d need 2 100ah batteries at about £200, but one of these, at about £290 would be a good option, given it saves space and weight.
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That's pretty much my thinking too. I haven't bought one so can't comment but the way things are at the moment I'm hoping to be getting one of these in the next couple of months. With discount it'll be sub-£270.
 
Looking at the specifications, it's more likely to be seeing around the 300 cycles mark (more than the average AGM to be fair) based on rate of discharge and temp (especially if you're using high output inverters and their rated discharge performance ). It is also vital that the charge regime is bang on, so not to damage these units, so most factory mains chargers and basic solar regulators are a No-No. You need to be looking at MPPT regulators and a charger with a specific AGM profile to match their specs.
The likely hood you'll take them to 10.8v is low, as most Euro/British M/Home's consumer units kick out at 11.5v as a general rule, but my concerns would be the way you consume the power, as the performance really tails off if you hit them hard, making the 300 cycle mark a more realistic performance claim. If they aren't being hit hard, I can imagine that they would give you reasonable performance - providing that it's low current consumption in the van, but that is no different when using Lithium as taking the average 100ah Li to 50% SOC could double the cycle life (seeing that most good quality Li can be as much as 2500 cycles when discharging to 100% SOC - pending on manufacturer).

It would be interesting to see how a warranty claim is handled with one of these units that's for sure. I can imagine it having to be returned back to the supplier for testing, which would be interesting how if the amount of cycling the battery is determined and that it is excessive, but the unit still is under the 4 year warranty. Battery warranties and be a stickler, I have had many an argument over battery suppliers in these situations, especially sealed units that have been sent back, only for the suppliers to say this battery has been abused and the claim falls on deaf ears. Victron also have an RMA returns policy, so they will put pressure on the supplier to do these tests and in some cases, the product has to be returned first before a claim is complete.
 
Battery warranty doesn’t seem too good to me, or at least when I look at T&C’s it doesn’t. All I see is warranty if problem is due to manufacturing defects. I know I haven’t even tried to return my Bosch and Varta battery’s as they work perfectly as a starter battery, just not enough capacity for me after 12 months or so.
Of course that doesn’t mean the supplier won’t do a lot more for customers if/when they get problems. Only supplier I know that definitely will swap or money back no quibble is Costco.
 
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