New batteries

Well they are an Alpha Batteries own brand and someone's making them for them.......? Even if they are not quite up to the Leoch spec they appear to be a very good purchase at that kind of price.
I have a Leoch myself, It was advertised on Flea-Bay as 1 yr old and hardly used being purchased as an emergency backup if needed when the caravanner was using CLs without mains power. I wouldn't normally go near a used Lead acid battery but as the Lead Carbons are pretty PSOC tolerant I thought I'd risk it, especially at £85. Got it home, charged it, gave it a 55% discharge and the output voltage was still around that of a new battery, conclusion was it was a 1 yr old battery that had hardly been used!
Been on the van for 18 months now and voltages/self discharge rates are really excellent. Wouldn't bother with lead acid now.
Keeping my fingers crossed that Lithium prices will drop over the coming years, they really are superb but quite an outlay all things considered, I guess as always it all boils down to the individuals use and hence energy requirements but if you're not spending days upon days off grid or powering high wattage equipment through an inverter then Lead Carbon seems the way to go.
Merl
 
merl said:
Lead acid batteries have several problems that lead to shortened lifespan.
Every discharge cycle shortens its life and reduces it's Ah rating, the deeper the discharge the greater the damage, this is particularly bad when you discharge below 50% of it's capacity. This effect is worsened by the fact that the last 10% (approx) of the batterie's charge has to be trickled in slowly over a long period of time and hence you're often starting a cycle from less than 100% and often 85-90% of theoretical maximum battery capacity, so basically if you're going to avoid discharging deeper than 50% of it's capacity and your starting from 85% charge then your 100Ah battery is only going to deliver 35Ah and this is when it's brand new! Leaving the battery in a partial state of charge (PSOC) results in internal sulphating which again reduces capacity further. It follows that as the battery gets partially 'worn out' a sudden avalanche of deeper discharges and lower capacity quickly destroys the battery.
Lead carbon batteries have several advantages over lead acid.
They charge easier meaning you'll probably start each cycle from a higher charge level.
They are able to deliver many more discharge cycles over their lifespan.
They are far more PSOC tolerant and can be left partially discharged for long periods without the negative effects.
At the moment I'd probably plump for this:
https://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/12v-100ah-ritar-agm-lead-carbon-ultra-deep-cycle-battery-dc12-100c
At £170 delvered it's only £15 more expensive than the Yuasa L36 from Halfords and I'd expect it to be considerably superior.
Click to expand...
Those are the ones I've earmarked for my next pair - but Alpha appear to have described them as AGM in their link, I think that's a mistake. I hope it is anyway.
 
merl said:
Well they are an Alpha Batteries own brand and someone's making them for them.......? Even if they are not quite up to the Leoch spec they appear to be a very good purchase at that kind of price.
I have a Leoch myself, It was advertised on Flea-Bay as 1 yr old and hardly used being purchased as an emergency backup if needed when the caravanner was using CLs without mains power. I wouldn't normally go near a used Lead acid battery but as the Lead Carbons are pretty PSOC tolerant I thought I'd risk it, especially at £85. Got it home, charged it, gave it a 55% discharge and the output voltage was still around that of a new battery, conclusion was it was a 1 yr old battery that had hardly been used!
Been on the van for 18 months now and voltages/self discharge rates are really excellent. Wouldn't bother with lead acid now.
Keeping my fingers crossed that Lithium prices will drop over the coming years, they really are superb but quite an outlay all things considered, I guess as always it all boils down to the individuals use and hence energy requirements but if you're not spending days upon days off grid or powering high wattage equipment through an inverter then Lead Carbon seems the way to go.
Merl
Click to expand...
Xplorer is the Alpha Brand (which is how these are labelled) and Ritar (ritarpower.com) is the OEM.

Leoch is another excellent battery manufacturer

bartman said:
Those are the ones I've earmarked for my next pair - but Alpha appear to have described them as AGM in their link, I think that's a mistake. I hope it is anyway.
Click to expand...
The original model of the Ritar Lead Carbon battery Alpha imported were AGM (these are the ones I have actually), but they decided to switch to the Gel version of the same battery, so while the link has AGM within the URL, they are GEL batteries.
(I am guessing instead of creating a new entry, they just updated the description which does give some confusion (I did point this out to Alpha last year actually ;) ))
 
Alpha are launching their own Xplorer branded lithium batteries next year I'm told.

Might be worth waiting a little while if lithium is an option you're considering.

I imagine their batteries will be more price competitive.
 
I asked a question of Amazon about one of the batteries they offer which is a cheapish lithium, (£400 for 100AH) to which I put a link in an earlier post. Here are my question and their answer, Your comments please

A fellow customer answered your question,​

"Can i use one of these to replace a similarly rated lead acid leisure battery in my motorhome the charger is a nordelettronica, ne186"​

KB answered:​

"Yes you can. Lead acid batteries will not fully charge this battery, but that only means it will prolong the life. Also, this battery can be discharged to 10% or so, rather than 50% with lead acid, so even if you can charge 90%, you will still have more capacity. Forget lead acid. These can also be stored upside down or on their sides. Much lighter too. This battery should last you a long while and they have a legit cs and warranty."​


anyone know what a CS is? and does anyone fully understand the answer? and do we know the price and when the Explorer will be available

Harry
 
Harrytherid said:
I asked a question of Amazon about one of the batteries they offer which is a cheapish lithium, (£400 for 100AH) to which I put a link in an earlier post. Here are my question and their answer, Your comments please

A fellow customer answered your question,​

"Can i use one of these to replace a similarly rated lead acid leisure battery in my motorhome the charger is a nordelettronica, ne186"​

KB answered:​

"Yes you can. Lead acid batteries will not fully charge this battery, but that only means it will prolong the life. Also, this battery can be discharged to 10% or so, rather than 50% with lead acid, so even if you can charge 90%, you will still have more capacity. Forget lead acid. These can also be stored upside down or on their sides. Much lighter too. This battery should last you a long while and they have a legit cs and warranty."​


anyone know what a CS is? and does anyone fully understand the answer? and do we know the price and when the Explorer will be available

Harry
Click to expand...
well, #1, not that you would want to, but you cannot put lithium batteries upside down, either in use or in storage, so "KB" is a bit too much of a lithium 'fanboy' to really take his comments fully seriously. In fact some Lithiums you cannot even use on their side (the ability to use batteries on their side (or upside down!) is not just related to the technology but the actual construction within the battery box).

'cs' I would assume refers to Customer Service - I guess he is saying that the company is responsive to enquiries and provide support of their product.
 
Harrytherid said:
I asked a question of Amazon about one of the batteries they offer which is a cheapish lithium, (£400 for 100AH) to which I put a link in an earlier post. Here are my question and their answer, Your comments please

A fellow customer answered your question,​

"Can i use one of these to replace a similarly rated lead acid leisure battery in my motorhome the charger is a nordelettronica, ne186"​

KB answered:​

"Yes you can. Lead acid batteries will not fully charge this battery, but that only means it will prolong the life. Also, this battery can be discharged to 10% or so, rather than 50% with lead acid, so even if you can charge 90%, you will still have more capacity. Forget lead acid. These can also be stored upside down or on their sides. Much lighter too. This battery should last you a long while and they have a legit cs and warranty."​


anyone know what a CS is? and does anyone fully understand the answer? and do we know the price and when the Explorer will be available

Harry
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I have my doubts about using a lithium battery as a straight drop in replacement. First considering alternator charging when the engines running. You have an alternator capable of delivering say 80A connected to a Lithium battery capable of safely accepting a similar current but the wiring between them wont be able to accept anything near that. Sure there will be wiring resistance that will reduce the current flow but I wouldn't be surprised if fuses, connectors, control panel, relays etc started failing pretty quickly under the stain and worse case scenario would be the wiring overheating.
Secondly the 240v charger would be given a hard time, with a normal lead acid battery the charger would initially be faced with possibly (depending on the depth of discharge) delivering it's maximum permissible 20A of high current into the partially discharged battery but this current would taper off quickly as the battery voltage rises. The lithium battery however would continue to swallow the whole 20A until it was virtually fully charged and then the current would drop off a cliff so to speak and drop to a very low level. Funnily enough my Nordelletronica charger is currently being repaired because it couldn't stand the continuous high load presented to it by a heavily discharged lead acid battery. The Nordelletronicas are a masterpiece of squeezing a quart into a pint pot and I feel that some compromises were made in the design in an effort to keep the chargers small, one of the internal transformers is notorious for failing which indeed it has done previously on mine. I know your newer model now has a cooling fan which will help and I don't know if the makers have beefed up the FETs that have failed this time in mine but personally I'd be sceptical of asking it to provide it's maximum 20A on every charge and I think you'd soon be replacing a broken charger.
My guess is that the lithium battery would be best served with it's own B2B charger, if so you'd have to factor in the expense of the B2B and the alterations to the wiring needed.
Merl
 
Thank you so much all, Wildebus and Merl especially. I think you have convinced me to go for the lead carbon that Wildebus is advocating but I still have not received instructions as to how best to obtain them, do I just click on Wildebus' link and go from there or what? The suppliers of the lithium I was on about do reply to the questions as KB says but only give a partial answer, always, so not much help.
Regards, Harry
 
david ( wildebus) has a website and on it you will find links to his shop or contact him direct by P M on here
 
Harrytherid said:
Thank you so much all, Wildebus and Merl especially. I think you have convinced me to go for the lead carbon that Wildebus is advocating but I still have not received instructions as to how best to obtain them, do I just click on Wildebus' link and go from there or what? The suppliers of the lithium I was on about do reply to the questions as KB says but only give a partial answer, always, so not much help.
Regards, Harry
Click to expand...
Alpha sell Leoch 100ah Lead Carbon batteries. I have 3 x 115's in parallel. They work very well, and as a bonus, will safely give another 30% depth of discharge. That is 70% not the 50% expected from lead acid.
Would I do the same again, knowing what I know know. Not on your Nelly. I'd head straight for lithium. Changing anything on the van that needed to be upgraded to suit. My 3 LC Leoch's weigh in at over 90kg's. So, what's that? A dead body or two? That's got to effect MPG.
As a footnote.
Thanks to David, I'm already working part lithium. I hope that I can get away for a month or three, to give them a real test. I'll happily take a fourth jab if required. They're not doing much sitting on the drive. Hereford cancelled. Fingers, toes,knees crossed we can do Goosnaugh.
 
merl said:
Lead acid batteries have several problems that lead to shortened lifespan.
Every discharge cycle shortens its life and reduces it's Ah rating, the deeper the discharge the greater the damage, this is particularly bad when you discharge below 50% of it's capacity. This effect is worsened by the fact that the last 10% (approx) of the batterie's charge has to be trickled in slowly over a long period of time and hence you're often starting a cycle from less than 100% and often 85-90% of theoretical maximum battery capacity, so basically if you're going to avoid discharging deeper than 50% of it's capacity and your starting from 85% charge then your 100Ah battery is only going to deliver 35Ah and this is when it's brand new! Leaving the battery in a partial state of charge (PSOC) results in internal sulphating which again reduces capacity further. It follows that as the battery gets partially 'worn out' a sudden avalanche of deeper discharges and lower capacity quickly destroys the battery.
Lead carbon batteries have several advantages over lead acid.
They charge easier meaning you'll probably start each cycle from a higher charge level.
They are able to deliver many more discharge cycles over their lifespan.
They are far more PSOC tolerant and can be left partially discharged for long periods without the negative effects.
At the moment I'd probably plump for this:
https://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/12v-100ah-ritar-agm-lead-carbon-ultra-deep-cycle-battery-dc12-100c
At £170 delvered it's only £15 more expensive than the Yuasa L36 from Halfords and I'd expect it to be considerably superior.
Click to expand...
How weird.
Go onto Alpha Batteries site. Select Leisure, select Lead Carbon. 1 listed. Select that, it's Leoch 100ah.
Alternatively, select meri's www. alpha link. Different battery entirely.

Nurse! The screens.🤯
 
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