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Battery Life
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FYI – Lifeline is in San Dimas, CA and their eastern distribution center is in Rockingham, NC.
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Excellent post by Andre because it shows how batteries can get cooked if the inverter charging voltage is not adjusted by sensing battery temps.
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The same manual shows how battery cycles are reduced by temperature of the battery. Yuma has an average daily temperature of 88.7 degrees and at that temperature the charts show that instead of 1000 cycles, one can expect a bit more than 400. Don’t think it matters what causes the temperature of the battery to increase, charging or ambient……..it is the physical temperature of the battery. While I agree with Andre and Jon, point remains that hotter climates will substantially reduce battery life, of course if your inverters are AFU’d, you gets a double dipping…….. Still working on the data for the off the grid batteries, that may be a solution, dunno.
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Here’s a comprehensive page, http://www.mpoweruk.com/life.htm, which sums up the reasoning behind significant decreases in calender life of batteries with increases in ambient temps.
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Having replaced all of the house batteries the other day, this evening I walked by the bus to hear strange noises coming from the electrical bay. It didn’t take long to discover that one of my inverter cooling fans sounds like the bearings have been replaced with gravel and the unit was very hot. Do not know yet if it is a dead indian however I was wondering about a replacement unit, how it may marry up to the other. Xantrax 458 looks like the replacement for the Freedom 25’s installed….any ideas or should I punt and replace them both…you input is appreciated…
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Knowing that some appliances are not happy with modified sine wave inverters, in the long run a pair of replacements might be better at this point thant repairing it. As you begin to replace appliances and as more electric devices require pure sine wave that might be the best approach and here is the big reason, the newer inverters are going to compensate for temps in charge mode.
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Thanks Jon,
I think I may be stuck with Xantrax as a direct replacement. Guess I will replace the 2500 watt inverters with the 2000 watt as my options are limited and I do not want to fry any internal wiring or circuits in the coach. The Freedom 25’s (as was pointed out to me) does have a battery temp sensor but I am quite sure that the newer units will be better. I need some guidance from Xantrax but I hope that this does not turn into a wiring/cabling project and all of the “stuff” (including the dimensions) are close to the 25. Lots of stuff in there could be nightmarish…auto gen start, remote control panel dimensions, even the cable to the remote control unit(s).
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Stepping down from 2500watt to 2000watt doesn’t make sense to me. Why are you reducing your battery power capability?
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The capacity that is being reduced is the loads carried by the inverter. John actually has not lost any battery capacity.
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Jon is right. I meant to say inverter capacity. Isn’t the power available from the batteries dependent on the size of the inverters?
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Anyone have contact with a motor pool solider from Iraq. I wonder how those batteries are holding out in the heat over there?
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