Battery Cycle Life Ratings [RE-wrenches]

Tue Nov 2 12:08:15 PST 2004

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You're starting to worry me a little here wrenches.

 < < L16 HC's are notorious for being short-lived. The standard L-16 is way
better
for longevity and should be as least as good as a T-105. After all, it has
more lead. Matt T >  >

I have recently been installing Trojan L16H "Superior Cycling" batteries.
Sold to me as a longer lived battery.
The info I have (I believe up to date) from Trojan.

L16G 370 AH @ 20 hr, 933 LEU (Life Time Energy Units), 106 lbs.
L16P 390 AH @ 20 hr, 1004 LEU, 113 lbs.
L16H 420 AH @ 20 hr, 1148 LEU, 121 lbs.

I can not find a definition of Trojans LEU's. Surrette used to have a column
in their literature for cycles at a 60% DOD while others commonly stated 80%
DOD cycles.

The L16HC is not listed by Trojan that I can see. So hopefully the L16H I
have been installing is a sound battery.

To add to Trojan info. The following are golf cart size deep cycles.

T-105 225 AH @ 20 hr, 438 LEU, 62 lbs.
T-125 240 AH @ 20 hr, 492 LEU. 66 lbs.
T-145 260 AH @ 20 hr, 673 LEU, 72 lbs.

Over the past 20 years I have used Surrettes (the old CH-375's and big 2v
cells), Trojans (T-105 and L16's), a (mostly lamentable go around with
NiCads), and recently Power Battery (www.powerbattery.com) 2v cells (so far
favorable but with no long term results yet), also some good successes with
VRLA batteries.

Results always vary. With so many variables (system design, changes to
design loads, good maintenance / bad maintenance etc.) anecdotal evidence
does not mean much. But I have seen people get 10 yrs use in a pv system and
12 years with a hydro system on T-105's. And I have seen L-16's last over 12
yrs in pv systems that are well designed with homeowners who took care of
their sytems well. I have also seen people blow through both T-105's and
L16's in 3 years time because they did not stick to their projected load
usage. I have Surrette 2 volt cell systems out there now with no problems;
but only 6 years so far.

I try to teach my home/system owners how to use their TriMetric Meter to
understand when their battery bank is fully charged
and I tell them to make sure it is fully charged at least once per week. If
they do this the batteries will not develop sulfation. By fully charged I
basically mean equalized, but I don't call it that. A truly 100% charged
battery is already equalized.

DP

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