Solar Electric Batteries | Deep Cycle Solar Battery | AGM

Deep Cycle Solar Battery Price List

Mainly there are three types of a solar battery, The Lead Acid, the Gel and AGM, All three types
need to be deep cycle. You can go to the local auto parts house and get a Cranking
battery but it will be short lived. Cranking batteries are not built to be drained
deeply repeatedly. The use is to start your car, RV or boat. It has thin plates
and is meant for a boost of power all at once, then recharged immediately.

A Solar Electric Deep Cycle Battery is normally discharged slowly
over hours or days before being recharged, It will not provide a large
boost of power like other types. Such as a cranking battery would. However don’t drop a wrench
across the terminals. Deep cycle do have a lot of spark in them.

Wet lead acid solar battery -ver- Gel and AGM batteries in maintenance and cost. This is an easy
one to cover. You have to check the lead acid type every few months to make sure they are not low
on distilled water. You do not have these issues with a gel or agm battery. But you do have
to spend twice the money to buy a solar gel or agm. Figure 10 lead acid batteries at 85 dollars
each verses 10 gel at 170 dollars each. It is kind of like getting paid 850 dollars to check the
battery water 4 times a year. Not bad wages for 4 hours work per year.

You can find factory battery watering devices for your solar battery which takes care of watering
for you. However they cost enough to just go ahead and buy a gel type.

A good brand name for solar deep cycle is Trojan. There are many other battery brands that would
work great. But you might come closer to finding this one local. And save the shipping cost.

Danger of spills and swelling when over charging or moving your solar battery. A big do not, is do
not charge a gel with a charger set for a regular or deep cycle. The gel battery will swell and the
gel will come out. You can not put the gel back in once it is out.

Over charging wet cell lead acid batteries will cause them to bubble out and will be all over
everything and battery fumes could cause an explosion or flash fire. I recommend you build a box
for your batteries. Put the batteries in it with nothing else but the connection cables on the terminals
and a fuse. No electrical devices in the box at all. Install a flue in the top to allow the fumes to
escape out the top and outside of the building. Never ever put and inverter or charger or controller
in the same space or box with a lead acid. The fumes will ignite.

Thermal runaway in simple terms means the battery is too hot and over charging and are going to
explode. I have never seen this happen. Maybe a good water sealed battery box to put your solar
battery in that could be filled with water by the fire department? Best thing to do is shut off the
inverter and any charging devices and call your fire department and Stay away from them.

Heat and cold has a large effects on a solar battery. It takes extra power to charge when batteries
are cold and less when it is warm. Solar panels charge better when they are cold which helps in
cold weather. Some people put the batteries inside their home to keep them from freezing. I’ll go
with gel inside a home but not wet lead acid. Better to have a building for them not connected to
your home.

Solar deep cycle batteries come in all sizes from 5 AH to over 300 AH. In another area of this site
I was talking about the system in an overview and I spoke of what size of a solar battery bank to
get and how to determine this. This depends on how much power usage you will require. It all falls
together with no need for a degree in astrophysics or complicated math formulas or charts and graphs.

Do the math on how much battery power is required to run your load for 24 hours in watts. Divide
the watts by DC voltage (12 volt battery, 24 volt battery..) and you have the amps you need.
Double that for 50% rate of discharge and you have the battery size in amp hours. Size the inverter
to cover the heaviest load you will put on it at any one time. Extra solar batteries and solar panels
are always a help.