Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | Ok- I'm going to preface this with: What I'm going to say is from an electrical engineering perspective. I have been working with deep cycle batteries for over 25 years. This includes both AGM and wet cells and others. The company I work for in my day job, buy's more deep cycle batteries than anyone else in the entire world.
First if the battery has been sitting on the shelf in the store for 3 years it's crap, don't buy it! A brand new deep cycle marine battery has a 3-5 year design life. This means it will typically last for 3-5 years from the date of manufacture if kept properly charged and no discharges. They all typically have a one year warranty. So if you take that 3 year old battery home & it fails 1 yr 2 months later, too bad!
All batteries also have a cycle life. For typical marine deep cycle batteries this is going to be from 100-300 deep cycles. It all depends on the internal plate design. Deep cycle doesn't mean discharging to zero (0) volts. Typically deep cycle means discharge to 10.5 volts for a 12V jar.
Both the battery life and cycle life are dependent on proper recharge. Recharge the battery to 100% immediately. Don't leave a battery sitting in a discharged or partial discharged condition- this causes permanent damage to the plates (loss of capacity).
bn- if you had a AGM discharge to 0V, and it recovered to 100% capacity you are one very lucky person. I wouldn't try it to often. That's actually one of the disadvantages of AGM technology, i.e., they are very hard to recover from a severe deep discharge condition (0 Volts). Most of the time they become a throw away/recycle item.
Lead-acid batteries in storage should be recharged every 90 days- consult the manufacturer if you have any doubts.
Have fun!
Al
Edited by ESOX Maniac 3/24/2008 9:30 PM
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