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Old 06-15-2016, 01:46 PM   #1
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The BATTERY TEST results are in

You have had your batteries in your TT for 3, 4, 5 years. You do a voltage check and it shows 12.6Volts (full charge) looks good to me, but what about the Amp Hours of the battery? New it was rated at 84Ah, it is now 4 years old, so how many Ah's does the OLD battery really have?

My first test was performed on an old interstate battery to see what the CURRENT Ah would be. The battery is an Interstate 84Ah battery. It still takes a full charge and sits for months at 12.8VDC, without any charger on it. So to the average camper it looks like a good battery. Why did I do this test? So, I can eventually test my Trojan T-145 batteries, but decided to do a test on my original Interstate that came with the TT.

Battery information: Interstate SRM-24 84Ah (4 years old)
(Mostly used with my office UPS system and electronics projects)

Test Equipment:
Wind Turbine dump load resistor (15Amp load)

Test Information:
After an 8 Hour rest, Battery Voltage 12.98,
Connected battery to the dump load resistor

Test Results:
Voltage start 12.98VDC, Voltage End 10.5VDC
Test Time:
165 minutes

Calculations:
165 minutes / 60 minutes = 2.75 hours
2.75 hours * 15 amps = 41.25Amp Hours (current Ah available at full charge)
Useable Ah = 20.5Ah (not very much when you turn on a heating system or Tv…)

So, now you are curious as to what your current old batteries Ah's really are.

I also posted the test results on the RVing with SOLAR Social Group.

Don
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Old 06-15-2016, 09:19 PM   #2
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So you're saying that after 4 years you batteries have just 25% of their original capacity. Interesting, and troubling at the same time. When you get new batteries, I'd have the same test done after the first charge, just to see if they truly do hold their rated capacities.
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Old 06-16-2016, 04:57 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SmokerBill View Post
So you're saying that after 4 years you batteries have just 25% of their original capacity. Interesting, and troubling at the same time. When you get new batteries, I'd have the same test done after the first charge, just to see if they truly do hold their rated capacities.


Actually, you would be very surprised if you tested a brand new Deep Cycle battery, as it takes 75 - 100 cycles to reach peak performance. On the first cycle you can expect the new batteries to provide only 70 - 75% of their rated capacity, according to Trojan engineering.

The Interstate batteries have lost 60% of their Rated Ah, but still hold a charge and stay above 12.6 Volts (full charge). It would have been interesting to take the test each year to see what the actual Ah were after each year.

Don
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