pianotuna wrote: He is taking them to 11.6 volts. That means he is not recharging nearly soon enough, no matter what charging method is being used.
I disagree. Very possible they are only getting 70% charged (or less) due to a poor charging system.
Actually, BOTH of you are correct.
Discharging that deeply (anything over 50%) is detrimental to battery life.
So is repeated "semi-charging"-- not bring the batteries all the way up to 100%. Clearly, they do not need to be fully charged each time, but once a week at a minimum.
Most efficient use of a battery with long life in mind is to discharge to 50%, recharge to 85%, repeat. Once a week, bring to full charge.
I would shoot for four GC2s or T105s - Two groups of 6V batteries connected in series will give 12VDC at 450AH with a RC capacity 894 minutes. This means you can pull 25AMPS from this battery bank for almost 15 hours. What you lose out on using the 12VDC batteries is the RC time.
I am currently running three GP24 12VDC Interstate batteries on my OFF-ROAD POPUP and have about 255AH of capacity. I can just make it thru the day/night camping off the power grid run before re-charging using my 2KW Honda generator. My DC voltage will run down to 12.1 to 11.9 VDC before re-charging. I watch the DC volts like a hawk when camping off the power grid. I am estimating my wattage draw for the day/night thing is around 250-300WATTS.
I too re-charge usually from 8AM-10AM and then again from 4:30PM-7:30PM camping here on the East side of the US where we have lots of generator restrictions in place. Of course I make my fresh ground bean coffee for the day and cook up stuff on the electric skillet sometimes when running the generator.
Keep in mind the size of the Golf Cart batteries is a taller GP24 size battery.
Perhaps you have room for four of these...The GC2 batteries dimensions are this
Weight 63lbs (T105s 62lbs)
Length 10-1/4 (T105s 10-3/8)
Width 7-0 (T105s 7-1/8)
Height 9-1/2 (T105s 10-7/8 Bet this includes the terminals)
You "really really" need to have a smart-mode charging capability for these batteries.
You can also do something that I am thinking about. I am planning two separate groups of two 6V batteries in series with one group on my trailer tongue and the second group in the back of my truck bed. This way I can have batteries for my two radio operations when I am using the truck by itself and when camping I can connect the two battery banks together using a 4AWG 2-conductor cable/plug arrangement. Just connect an additional heavy duty 2-way cable to the truck like I do with the 7-way trailer connector. Might be thought.
Two of my GP24 batteries was purchased in 2008
and the third was purchased also in 2008 but it was a 2005 model trailer so I really dont know how old this nattery is. I just lost this battery this spring.
My off the power grid story...
* This post was
edited 05/04/12 08:54am by RoyB *
My Posts are IMHO based on my experiences - PM me Roy and Carolyn
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mdock2 wrote: Thanks for the answers, so, let me ask this. Which would be the better way to go. The 2 6's or the 3 12's?
Would love to have 4 6's but don't have the room, 3 is as far as I can go.
I would prefer a 2 6v GC true deep cycle batteries over 2 12v marine/deep cycle batteries with about the same amps. I think the 6v's can take much more abuse than the hybrids.
That said, more amps are always better than fewer amps. In your case with near double the amps, I'd stick with the 3 12v's.
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