![]() I was concerned that I would be getting old or refurbished batteries but was informed that Batteryguys was one of Lifeline’s largest customers, and they ship out pallet loads of batteries to them every week. I contacted Lifeline to ask about this online vendor. We searched online and soon found that would deliver these same batteries to our door for $4,300. All told, we were looking at $7,500 installed, and we would have to wait at least two months until business got back to normal with COVID-19. We got a bid to have all seven batteries replaced by during our upcoming haul out, but the price tag surprised us. Besides the four house batteries, we have a Lifeline 4D battery to start the main engine, and two smaller Lifelines to power the generator, wing engine, and an isolated communication battery for emergencies. So, it was time to replace the batteries. Our Xantrex inverter has this function, but we saw no improvement in performance after equalizing the battery bank. This overcharge mixes the electrolyte, evens the charge among varying battery cells, and reduces permanent sulfation of the battery plates. ![]() Equalization is a controlled overcharging of a fully charged battery. One way to potentially breathe new life into older batteries is to run an equalization process through the inverting/charging system. Not the kind of thing you expect from an expedition trawler. Our ability to anchor out for more than a day was severely compromised. And even that wouldn’t allow us to make it through the night without running low. Our generator run times had grown from two hours, twice a day, to eight hours, four times a day. Indiscretion has four Lifeline 8D batteries to power the house, which were over five years old, and was having a hell of a time keeping a charge. While there are lots of power-draining systems on the boat, the main culprits are the freezer and refrigeration units, which make up more than 70% of our typical amperage use. Once fully awake, I noted that the battery level was perilously low. You cannot distinguish the low-battery alarm from the Anchor watch alarm, so on the times this has happened, I immediately launched myself to the pilothouse to gauge which way we’re dragging, peering out of the dark windows for some sign of a lee shore. If it turns out to be a bad decision I will let you know.Over the past few months, we’ve been awakened by our Maretron monitoring system with a low-battery alarm during the wee hours. It made me look much deeper than the initial math which made it sound much better than what it was. Not withstanding any of this I appreciate your input and help with this. ![]() The Interstate SRM-4D's are advertised as DC Batteries so I will have to check whether they are "true" DC Batteries or not. To address your other statement about true Deep Cycle (DC) batteries. You are correct there are more AH's at the upper end by 20 for the T-105's but the extra cost of the batteries and of the cables (not to say anything of a x2 for potential defective batteries) makes the 4D's seem more attractive. I found the table below on the net and it gives the general AH ratings per battery type.Īs you can see if I have 2 4D's I have a range of 360-430AH's and 4 T-105's have a range of 360-450AH's. I think you are right about the battery guys math but after further review I believe the 4D's are the way to go.
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