12v wet cell that rivals the 6v GC battery life?

[booster]

The 12v batteries have always been specified as not a good in cycling as the GC batteries, and many folks have found that to be very true.

Trojan has been messing around with their site a lot lately, so I pop in once in a while to see what they are doing this time. They have come up with a nice listing of the top end of their line, including some 12v batteries, most of which are shown to be lower than the GC or other "real" batteries.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/product...ine-flooded-2/

Nice that they list the cycle life for a change rather "longer, better, higher quality" type terms that mean little.

There are 3 12v batteries in the 1200 cycle at 50% discharge section, which is as good as it gets. Of interest is the J150

http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/dat...ata_Sheets.pdf

150AH at 20 hour rate, 1200 cycles at 50%, about the same size as a gp31 but about 1" taller. This could be a very good battery for those that currently have a single battery setup as you would get some very good specs with much less modification than trying to squeeze in two batteries. I would expect it to outperform pretty much any other 12v in the same size footprint, and last double even the other Trojans.

Also interesting is that the old standard Trojan SCS200, like we have, is no longer listed with the other true deep cycle batteries, but shows up in the marine/rv deep cycle starting batteries.

[wincrasher]

They also have a new "Reliant" AGM battery with 150 AH rating. It's a bit taller.

The problem with these is weight. You are getting up in the neighborhood of 85-95 lbs.

Interesting to see how many AH per pound you can get. It doesn't seem to vary much. Every time I find a higher capacity battery, it's either bigger, or heavier, or both. Just the limits of the technology I suppose.

[booster]

Yep, be it wet, agm, tppl, the AH per pound is going to be really close to the same in similar quality level batteries. So, big AH=heavy.

[markopolo]

The 1200 cycles at 50% DOD is impressive.

AGM's aren't that far behind though. You could easily miss the Trojan Reliant 12v AGM that wincrasher previously mentioned if you look for marine & RV batteries on Trojan's site right now.

J150 (wet cell) 84 lbs, 150ah, 1200 cycles at 50% DOD
Length 13.70
Width 7.13
Height 11.13

Trojan Reliant GC12 (AGM) (Golf Cart 12v) 97 lbs, 150ah, looks like 1000 cycles at 50% DOD
Length 12.96
Width 7.06
Height 10.96

[youtube:stai1ppe]S5G_h1pL7BM[/youtube:stai1ppe]

[booster]

Glad that was brought up, as I have not looked at the Trojan AGMs in a very long time. They have always been way behind the others in capacity, which the non-Reliant ones still are,it appears. IIRC, they were also made by someone else. I think the local Trojan distributor said Fullriver, but not sure. Now made by Trojan in the US. There had been chatter about Trojan starting from scratch with their own factory, and it looks like they are there, with impressive results.

The capacity for the size of that battery is very good. Same capacity as the GPL30HT Lifeline but smaller case. It is interesting that the GC2 versions don't have megacapacity, but are still equivalent to wet cells at 217AH. I wonder why they don't give a 100HR rate?

Based on the weight, it does look like the capacity is probably real, and Trojan is usually pretty good on that anyway.

If they turn out to be reliable, It looks like Lifeline could be in for some serious competition.

Went looking a bit and nobody is showing them for sale that I came across, must be pretty new. I wonder how expensive?

[wincrasher]

I'm considering if this would be a better option for my van than trying to fit a second battery. My local Trojan distributor can probably get me one. Question is if it will fit, and if the price makes sense for essentially 50% more useable capacity.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk