Fairford - Swap to a Gel Leisure battery

Hi,

I'm not too tech savvy and relaly quite new to campers.
Our Fairford (2018) leisure battery was allowed to drop below 50% for some time and is now basically fried!

Due to various circumstances we are going to have to live in our camper for some time.
This will mean we can't always guarantee to be hooked up so a decent leisure battery is a must.

Unfortunately, lithium isn't an option due to price.
I've read Gel are good for off grid use as they can go down to 20%.

My question is, can I just do a straight swap to a Gel from the standard battery or are there changes that need to be made to the battery charger?
It also has a solar panel (not sure if that makes a difference!).

Getting quite anxious to sort this as we only have a week before we need to move in and all places local are stacked out so this is a job I'm going to have to do myself :(

Many thanks is advance

Couldn't give a definitive answer, but if you use the search box at top right of page you will probably find helpful information

Yes - for a Gel/AGM battery, the charging profile should be different - both the mains charger and the solar controller should be set to Gel or AGM charging. As I recall, the high-current parts of the charging profile use a lower voltage (by 0.2-0.4V) to minimise the chance of gassing.

My previous Hymer came with s gel battery which lasted about 4 years. I replaced it with an Electrosol, sadly no longer made, which was still going strong when we changed vans 7 years later.  That was conventional electrolyte but special plates. The sealed conventional battery in my current van is still the original, after 10 years! On our last trip I was on site for a bit over two days with the charger accidentally switched off before the controller beeped at me to warn of low voltage. I reckon I will need to replace the leisure battery next year. Vehicle battery lasted 8 years, even after having been allowed to drop to 2V on one occasion while the van was laid up for winter at 6 months old.

I'd go for simplicity, SLA is what it has I'd replace with the same.
Google TAYNA best prices and great home delivery service.
Use their website to find the biggest one which will fit in your LB location, mine is 130Ah, and is under the driver seat, but only just!
We have solar too, 160w and a simple PWM controller which charges both VB and LB. Ours are 100% full all year round.
Just done 3 weeks in Pyrenees, very few sites even fewer EHU's zero issues re battery capacity.

By doing that you don't have to fiddle with anything Sargent, always a good thing, just buy the new one, fit it and get off on your trip!

Simplicity, always best!!

If you do this this morning you'll have the new battery by lunchtime tomorrow, mine was that quick from Tayna

I agree with IanH for your way ahead. 
Without ELU you will struggle this time of year to maintain any battery just with as fitted solar and be in residence.
Your fitted battery charger is likely PX 300 ( find charger and read label on front to confirm). This unit is non changeable for battery type and set for lead acid so would not properly charge any other type whereas it will give full charge to lead acid when on power.
Good luck and get ELU whenever possible, especially if you want heating on.

When I renewed my vehicle battery I bought a Varta LDF90 which is actually a leisure battery after reading analysis by Alliance and who did some good stuff here until he died. It's actually a good quality leisure battery with good cranking power as well and works ok for a motorhome vehicle battery as we do not use starter excessively. Not good if you have Stop-Start technology on your van. It has good resistance to lower discharge - but I'll not Test that. When leisure battery fails I'll get another Varta LDF90 or possibly larger capacity brother. There is a similar Yuasa.

At work over the past three years we’ve been trying out and monitoring pure lead carbon batteries on our hire boats, the leisure batteries on hire boats are not looked after by customers despite extensive training and explanation of how to read the battery monitors. The lead carbon batteries we’ve fitted are standing up very well and have outlasted lead acid by 50% still going strong. The ones we have used are manufactured by leoch

Thank you for all the helpful suggestions.

I went with replacing it with a SLA albiet a bigger 120Ah than was fitted.

Swapping it over was much more straight forward than I thought it would be so quite relieved.
I am however a bit surprised to find it drops about 8% charge overnight despite everything being switched off Heating, lights, fridge etc.).
The only thing I can see that is drawinging any power in the GSM/bluetooth unit that allows you to switch on the heating through the Truma control panel (via an app on a phone).
I can't find a switch on it to turn it off (I wouldn't use the feature) but would it really be enough to drain the battery that much over night?

The solar panel keeps pace with the drain during the day (assuming everything is still switched off but doesn't really charge the battery very much (I know it's not summer sun but still).
I was hoping to get away with just plugging in at weekends to recharge but if it loses that much charge with nothing on (apart from the previously mentioned GSM unit) I can't see that working.

Turn off the GSM/Bluetooth unit and turn the heating on when you get up for the loo

“I am however a bit surprised to find it drops about 8% charge overnight despite everything being switched off”


When you say everything, do you still have the main Sargent EC500 unit on overnight? It’s well documented on here about the drain that has when just sitting idle. 
With regards to the iNet unit, just unplug the small black power plug on it.

I wonder if it really has dropped 8%.  Its normal for the voltage to be higher just after it has been charged in the daytime and then after a few hours for it to drop to more of a resting voltage although it won't be a true resting voltage due to the EC500 load.

Like Caraman it seems unlikely your new battery has dropped 8% of it's stored powered overnight, that's assuming it was already fully charged. You can get a false reading if the battery voltage is being supported by a mains charger or power coming from a solar panel. Best to check the battery voltage after dusk and without EHU.

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I downloaded it from here
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My thanks to timsurf2021 for the following information about the Sargent PX300 charger.
I was thinking that the PX300 as in our van was only suitable for charging flooded lead-acid and AGM batteries. I learnt that there's a software upgrade that apparently enables the PX300 to charge also Gel and lithium batteries. So it looks like you might well have been able to fit a Gel battery that's if your Sargent system had the latest software installed. Probably your best bet to confirm all this would be to contact Sargent direct and have a dealer upload the new software.

For advice about a motorhome's electrical side of things check out here, they have lots of suggestions how to improve things and advice about batteries.
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