My nine year old 8D lifelines don't seem to be coming back to full charge like they should. At Lifelines direction going to do an equalizing charge on them and see what happens. Here is the question if replacement is required, Deka AGM,s 245 Ah $450.00 from Orileys or Lifeline,s at $650.00 plus. I know some folks here are using Deka,s.
Gels have roughly double the cycle life over AGM's
Bruce I replaced mine this past summer using Dekas but they were Gel. Those batteries are big and heavy so I don't want to have to replace them any sooner than I have to. Nine years is pretty good service.
I went with gells too. Deka is fine and gells have more cycles in them.
My guru buddy in Rv electrics only uses the deka gels.
I went with Gel's from Battery Plus when I replaced mine. They are made by East Penn
and have stores all over the country.
Bob (or anyone):
What constitutes a "cycle"?
Is recharging after a short trip where you only discharged them to 95% a cycle?
Does it have to discharge to a certain (unknown) level before recharging would complete a cycle?
{I have a similar question about lithium-ion batteries, which definitely have a limited number of cycles, but I will save that question for another forum.}
If any recharge activity constitutes a cycle event, should we avoid keeping the charger ON all the time to extend the life of our batteries?
How about a trickle charger; does that create a cycle event everytime it is not in float mode?
So many questions, so little time.
Thanks for any information y'all can add to our body of knowledge,
Trent
Those are full deep discharge/recharge cycles. Lesser discharges count proportionally less. Best to keep it as charged up as you can.
I replaced my house batteries last year with Battery Giant gels ( made by DEKA). They were original, not bad
2001-2013. Hope I get the same use out of the new ones.
Ted
We did figure out that my Harbor Freight motorcycle jack is invaluable in lifting the battery to the upper shelf in the center of the bay on a U320.
1500 lb. Capacity ATV/Motorcycle Lift (http://www.harborfreight.com/1500-lb-capacity-atvmotorcycle-lift-61632.html)
The Lifelines where put in when we bought our coach 9 years ago and have never been below 12.10 volts, coach is eather plugged in or generator is on auto start. We'll see how they do with equalizing charge this weekend. What I'm reading gel' are a lot more sensitive of charging voltages especially from the engine alternator. Just wondering if anyone has changed from lifelines to dekas noticed any diminished performance realitave to the $700.00 plus price difference between the 2. So far any prices I have seen gels are a good bit higher priced.