by martynvella on Mon, 15 Sep 2014 6:01 +0000
Just a quick report on a deep cycle battery. If you have read my other posts in this thread you will know my thoughts on batteries ( a necessary evil ).
When I wound up my business to go work in the mining industry in WA I was left with a pair of 80 AH Rocket ca/ca duel purpose batteries, fully sealed,( VRSLA ) which were about 3 months old at the time and were on constant charge from the vehicles system used for jump starting. They have sat in a cupboard connected to a smart charger for 2 years and 7 months until 3 weeks ago when I finally got the time to start installing stuff into my own ute.
Put a cfx35 fridge in the back and one of these batteries under the bonnet together with a redarc bcdc 1225lv,under the back seat,( picked up from bansheebuzz for the same price as ebay, which by the way was less than trade price from a major a/e supplier I have an account with ) set to 14.9 volts. Redarc recommend a setting just above 15 volts for calcium batteries but I just cant bring myself to pump that much into a fully sealed battery, it could make it more efficient, or it could blow the safety valve on a hot day and make me a very unhappy camper.
Ran the fridge constantly ever since set at 5 degrees. The longest without driving other than starting it to run it out of the garage for work was 3 days so I measured the voltage with the fridge running at 11.95 volts. Impressed me, hope the other one performs as well, it will be going in the trailer to run the shower and other camping luxuries you would expect a sparkie to have.
I was intending to run optima's but will hold off now till I see how these go through summer.