lesiure battery
- Thread starter PETERA
- Start date
Hi Petera I'v had an Elecsol 110AHr battery for well over 3 years and had no problems, not even needed topping up! The charger in my Senator keeps it fully charged (which I check with a separate voltmeter). It's a tight fit in the battery box, but fit it does.
Mike
Mike
Hi,
I too have an Elecsol which came witha 5 year gurantee and is now 6 years old. I remove it from the van when not touring and leave it on a maintenace charge. One site that we use requires quite a bit of uphill moving and a turn into the pitch which cannot be achieved without a mover, or the farmers mini tractor pushing the van. Used two weeks ago and no problem with power reserve so i guess it will do another saeson yet.
Regards
I too have an Elecsol which came witha 5 year gurantee and is now 6 years old. I remove it from the van when not touring and leave it on a maintenace charge. One site that we use requires quite a bit of uphill moving and a turn into the pitch which cannot be achieved without a mover, or the farmers mini tractor pushing the van. Used two weeks ago and no problem with power reserve so i guess it will do another saeson yet.
Regards
I bought an Elecsol in 2001 as we had just had a mover fitted to our new van. The van was an Abbey (Swift Group) that had a charger with a switch that alowed the user to select charger, battery or car, together with a meter showing current charge of battery. After looking at van instructions I decided to switch to battery when on site and let battery discharge until it arrived at red when I then switched to charge where I would leave it until I was back at top of green. After 2 seasons the battery failed. I contacted Elecsol and despite the 5 year warranty got nowhere. Not good customer service. I then contacted the dealer who had sold me the battery and they told me to bring it back ASAP. I did this and they replaced the battery and put the old one on top of a pile of dead Elecsol waiting to be returned. Having said that the replacement Elecsol is still working 8 years later and has just been checked by my dealer during van service is is OK. This is the 3rd van it has been used on all with movers.
After first failure I would not have contemplated buying another. However the replacement has lasted 8 years and is still going strong so I would probably buy another. I have however learnt that these batteries need to be returned to full charge as soon as possible after use. On my last Swift I used to switch to charger when on site so that the battery was not discharged. My latest van a Bailey has a different system with the charger always working when the van is plugged in to the mains.
My advice would be make sure you buy any battery from a reputable dealer who you can go back to if you have any problems, and keep the battery fully charged whenever possible.
After first failure I would not have contemplated buying another. However the replacement has lasted 8 years and is still going strong so I would probably buy another. I have however learnt that these batteries need to be returned to full charge as soon as possible after use. On my last Swift I used to switch to charger when on site so that the battery was not discharged. My latest van a Bailey has a different system with the charger always working when the van is plugged in to the mains.
My advice would be make sure you buy any battery from a reputable dealer who you can go back to if you have any problems, and keep the battery fully charged whenever possible.
I do a lot of rallying with no hook up which is the real test for a battery. A while back I bought a 110 amp numax for £60. I wasn't really expecting miracles but it has been severely discharged countless times and is still going strong after more than 3 years. I have uk giant 110 amp and 85 amp batteries too and they were slightly more expensive ( I think the 110 was about £85 )but no better or worse than the numax. The secret is to charge them fully using a good multistage charger and definitely don't overcharge them. I can usually get a weekend out of a 110 amp battery and I'm not especially conscious of power usage. And don't forget a "deep cycling" battery is supposed to do just that, if its constantly hooked up to a power supply its not cycling and that'll destroy it.
That simply is not true. A "deep cycling" battery suffers less, or should suffer less from deep cycling but all lead acid batteries are damaged by any cycling and the deeper the more severe the damage.mcghee said:
If its connected continuously to a quality smart charger and not cycled it will get the best possible life from it.
Leaving it on a poor basic charger is a certain route to destroying it.
A good practical guide even for a quality deep cycling battery is to limit the discharge to no more than 50% and very importantly recharge it as soon as possible. A quality deep cycling battery should be designed to be discharged by 80% but dont kid anyone doing that is anything but unwise if its life is important to you.
You're probably right, but my point is if you're hooked up to the mains all the time it doesn't matter whether you buy a good battery or a crap one.
My Elecsol failed after three years and I contacted their customer services. They were most obstructive and unhelpful. After a really hard fight I eventually had a replacement sent out, but it really was a struggle.
A five year warranty is not a lot of good if they will all ways to wriggle out of it.
A five year warranty is not a lot of good if they will all ways to wriggle out of it.
I too need a new 2nd battery for the season but I have noted a number of references to bad service from elecsol in the forums. my number 1 battery is a numex and that still seems ok after 3 years. I shall be looking at either numex or bosch/varta.
a point to take into account is, do you have a moto mover? if so you might require a battery that will supply suffiecient current. I think they tend to be called Dual usage, starting and deep cycle.
As I mentioned above my Elecsol is 6 years old and still moves the van into a difficult sloping pitch. It is dual use and was once used to start the Sorento diesel. I use a CTEK XS 3600 multi phase charger to maintain the battery through the periods when the van is not being used as the Bailey 'charger' will not reach the voltage required for a full charge. Some other makes of van also don't reach the full charge voltage. Also van's with so called chargers don't tend to have the charging/maintenace characteristics of the multi-phase chargers. There are a number of web sites that explain the characteritics of battery chargers.
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