Posted: 7/2/2012 4:42:45 AM EDT
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Hey SF Brothers...
Kind of a stupid question, but how long do you think I could leave an AGM battery hooked up to a battery maintainer like a Battery Tender? What I have is a Cabela's AGM deep cycle battery, and a Harley Davidson battery maintainer - which is made by Battery Tender, but re-badged with HD label. How long will it be good for? I mean, the battery is a no-maintenance battery - all sealed up - so I can't even get into it. If I hook it up and let it do its thing on the maintainer, how long will it be good for? Months? Years? Infinity ...AND BEYOND? 
I know that some of you have a great deal of electrical savvy concerning these things, and I would love to have some advice. By the way, this battery powers a security system I'm working on. |
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http://www.odysseybatteries.com/files/techbook.pdf Scroll down to page 13 (I think) and it has a lot of info on proper charging. |
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Every battery is different. I have seen them last 5 years and I have seen them last 1 year.
For the most part a standard Deep Cycle AGM battery will last about 3 to 5 years tops when properly maintained. I have never seen a AGM go past 5 years. And yes I am speaking of AGM and flooded batteries. I keep a maintainer on my AGM battery backup system and they are just as good now as they were when I got them about 9 months ago. |
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Kibby, what you can do is put a QUALITY battery 'maintainer' on your battery. One that won't 'overcharge it' and dry it out. Vector comes to mind.
THEN use a 12 vdc power supply to power the small load. In your case it could be a wall wart with a 12 vdc rating. NOW, connect the battery and WW together throught some Schottky power diodes [Radio Sk or ebay, a couple $]. If the load increases beyond the capabiity of the WW, the [3/10 volt drop] diode in the battery ckt passes the additional current to run the load. If the power fails to the WW, the battery picks up the load the same way. This is a good solution to what I think you are trying to do. As far as deepcycle or plain old flooded, I use flooded batteries with this config and get years of service from them. Every couple years you can check the SP on a flooded battery and you can't do this w/ a deep cycle. As for the usual OMG the gassing -don't worry abt it, it is a non-issue where air can circulate. |
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I have 3 AGM Optimas in a ski boat. I use the battery tender brand smart chargers to keep them topped off between trips to the water.
The batteries are in their 5 season this year. I am told Optima has their own line of chargers out now. I have not looked into them. Odyssey are good products too, and their info is great to help educate yourself about the high tech battery's that are out there today |
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Quoted:
Every battery is different. I have seen them last 5 years and I have seen them last 1 year. For the most part a standard Deep Cycle AGM battery will last about 3 to 5 years tops when properly maintained. I have never seen a AGM go past 5 years. And yes I am speaking of AGM and flooded batteries. I keep a maintainer on my AGM battery backup system and they are just as good now as they were when I got them about 9 months ago. If this is true I'm exceptionally lucky. I have two AGMs running running from 2001. Hell, I have 5 marine batteries from 2006 still kicking. |
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For better LONG TERM service, try putting the battery Tender on a timer, so it only runs 2 hours per day.
The minor voltage fluctuation between resting and float charge will somewhat reduce electrolyte stratification,and prolong the life of the battery. ( Yes, I know it is an AGM ) |