Want to get the most out of your
AGM deep cycle batteries?
Hi guys, Andrew here from
Accelerate Auto Electrics & Air Conditioning
on the Sunshine Coast.
Knowing how to correctly charge
and look after your deep cycle battery is crucial
for optimising its performance and life span.
In today's video, we're gonna run you through
few of our tips on how to correctly use and
maintain your deep cycle battery.
Now just to clarify,
these tips only apply to the AGM deep cycle
and not your starting battery.
Starting batteries are a completely different composition
and a design to be used or maintained
in a very different way.
So now that we've got the disclaimer out of the way,
let's get into the video.
Okay, so let's get into discharging, first off.
If you want this guy to live a while,
the last thing you want to do
is discharge it too much or run it too flat.
Basically, the lower the depth of discharge you take it to,
the shorter its life span is gonna be.
We recommend trying not to go below 11 volts.
Anything below 11 volts
and you're really causing damage to the battery.
Any sort of dual battery system we wire up,
we always recommend to use,
some sort of low voltage cutout
or protection system to stop this guy
getting discharged too much.
Now that we've covered discharging,
a second thing really is storage.
When you store the battery,
you always want to store it at a fully charged state.
If you leave the AGM battery
stored for a long period of time,
say anything over a month in a discharged state,
sulphation will always occur.
We'll go into sulphation a bit later,
but just remember,
if you want this guy to last a long time,
fully charge it before you store it
for any amount of time.
Okay, we covered discharging,
we've covered storage,
let's talk about charging.
An AGM battery has a different internal resistance
to your old school battery
and it also requires a different charging method.
Whenever you charge an AGM battery,
you really need a late model multistage charger.
A charger that will go through a,
absorption, bulk and float phase.
The old charger you got,
the old Arlec one that you've probably got in the back,
will just cook this guy and destroy it
and turn it into a balloon.
So whenever you charge this guy,
you want to look for a modern battery charger
that has an AGM setting,
or will detect an AGM,
and shows a multistage curve.
You'll generally see five, seven to 11 stages
are normally covered by your good grand charges.
When it's in the vehicle,
it's a different chemistry to your normal starting battery.
So, your alternator isn't really designed to
charge this style of battery.
Whenever you fit an AGM
deep cycle battery to a vehicle,
we always recommend to use a DCDC charger
that again, either detects the AGM battery
or is able to be modified to suit the AGM battery.
It requires a different charge rate,
to your normal start battery.
A DCDC charger generally will always
protect the start battery against any discharge
on the AGM battery.
So, the old VSR solenoid that people used to use,
not such a good idea.
These guys, DCDC charger,
and you'll get a much longer life span out of them.
So back to sulphation, your enemy.
Sulphation occurs when sulfuric acid
within the lead acid battery
reacts to a lead sulphate on the battery's
negative plates.
This reduces the surface area of the acid on the plate
and makes it difficult for the battery
to hold charge.
The best way to prevent sulphation,
once again, is to leave this guy fully charged.
We hope these tips have helped you
understand how to correctly use
and maintain your AGM deep cycle battery.
If you have any further questions
about battery care and maintenance,
give us a call on 1300 227 353,
or email us at info@amae.net.au.
Or you can even comment below.