Outer Limits 4x4 Board

So a motorhome owner, having just spent $250,000 on a motorhome with $5-10k worth of batteries on board, and countless thousands on the ancilleries that these battiers drive is going to skimp on a $500-1000 charger to ensure they get the maximum life out of the batteries?

Very doubtful.

Perhaps this is true of your customers, but is very much a generalization and if given all of the facts and options, you may be surprised as to how many would choose the more expensive route to give them the better performance.

If they aren't given the option - how could they make a choice?

What drove you to buy a Range Rover and Land Rover? Why not just buy a couple of Rodeos' - much cheaper and more economical in the long term ... by your logic everyone (that's 95% of people) would buy a Tata instead of something more upmarket that will give them more performance and longevity.

You are also suggesting that anyone who makes any piece of high end equipment shouldn't be in business because the market is not there to satisfy the need.

This time spannercrab, you are talking absolute crap and you quite obviously have no idea of what you are talking about.

We manufacture dual battery control systems for a whole range of markets.

We make a range of units for the motor home industry and include amongst our customers, Australia’s largest motor home manufacturer and they have been buying their gear off us EXCLUSIVELY for more than 10 years and even though they test other brands, from here and overseas, our gear still works better, is more reliable and protects the batteries better than anything they have tried.

Further more, even the $800,000 motor homes do not have anything near $5,000 worth of batteries in them, you are just making it up as you go along.

You have not got the foggiest idea of what you are on about because the only real competition we have is from an elcheapo product that companies, more interested in cutting corners than supplying quality products, use, and as it does next to nothing, your theory of people wanting high end monitoring just doesn’t hold up in the real world.

I regularly talk not only to the motor home builders but to many of their customers. We have a service available to anyone who buys our gear that should one of their customers have any form of electrical problem, they can be refereed to us and we will answer their questions. This is a particularly helpful service for the smaller manufacturers as they rarely have the time and/or the expertise to answer these types of questions.

So as you can see, I most definitely have an idea of what the public want.

Cheers.

This has got nothing to do with the original point - it's a complete digression. How you treat your customers I couldn't care less.

At the end of the day, the one and only point & the only thing that I disagree with at the end of the day is that your arbitrary recommendation of 50% DoD, according to the manufacturer IF YOU FOLLOW THE BATTERY CARE INSTRUCTIONS - is incorrect, purely your recommendation and has no industry backing or factual basis apart from your own opinion.

And while stating this opinion on this forum, it would appear that your battery controllers do not cut out until 100% DoD on the auxillary battery ... not 50%, which is your safe recommendation.

Once again a carefully made assumption on your part - again categorically stating that "no motor home has 5-10k worth of batteries installed" - and even if they did, why would they want to use a smart charger?

I could list them for you, I could find examples and point them out to you, but again I'm sure it would just be met with some unsubstantiated claim of "you can get whatever information you want, but it doesn't mean anything" with no factual rebuttal whatsoever, as has become the norm it would seem in this thread - in fact I don't think you've answered one question that I have posed to you yet.

Just out of curiosity, do you actually read any of the posts, including your own, because you have done nothing but contradict your own posts.

Again, I base the info I have posted here, on years of hands on experience and many thousands of satisfied customer.

Now tell me other that the one set up you have and the inability to work out what is on battery manufactures web sites, what experience do you have.

As you posted in your last thread, not taking you battery bellow 50% is a recommendation and there is no reason for not going bellow that except that you are going to shorten the operating life of your battery.

You have continually stated that the battery manufactures say that you can go bellow 50%. I haven’t argued that point but if you care to do a little math, when you look at the data provided by these battery manufactures, you will see that the very data you are using, confirms what I have been saying. If you go bellow 50% you will only get so many cycles before the battery can no longer be charged to 60% capacity.

My argument, all along, has been that to get the best economical value from your battery, you should not take it bellow 50% and I stand by that statement.

Can get simpler than that.

Cheers.

I read the posts with increasing frustration trying to get a straight answer from you.

Please point out if you would any contradiction that I have made in the course of these conversations - I would be keen to see it.

I have set up 100's of battery systems ... experience counts - but ignorance of facts counts for nothing. Not only do I have experience with "dual battery systems", stationary backup, UPS backup systems, PBX & switchgear deep cycle standby systems, caravan systems etc. We commonly get 12+ years life out of UPS batteries, even with 90% DoD during weekly exercise cycles.

I do not claim to be an expert in these matters and am more than willing to listen to opinion and fact, but I would appreciate not being patronized.

Customer satisfaction is an art in itself - and whether your product or service is the best in the business or the worst piece of junk in the world, customer satisfaction has nothing to do with it, it's about the total marketing effort. Which is why companies like Slik50 are still around ... however I am not in any way disputing your experience or quality of your product, I have no experience in either and therefore have no opinion either way.

If you do even more math again you will see that you shorten the life of the battery by dropping below 10% DoD - again - where does it stop? Don't discharge at all and you get th best life ... so why pick 50% as an arbitraty number and not 0, 10, 20, 30, or 40?

spannercrab, I quite honestly don’t know if your trying to be a clown or what.

If you never take a battery bellow 10% it’s going to die of old age before it ever gets any real use, so it’s going to cost you a fortune for next to no appreciable use.

At 50% you are going to get the maximum use out of the battery for the most likely longest possible time.

Have a look at any of the battery sites you have been so happy to quote. At 50%, your battery, on rough average, is going to last about three times longer than taking it to 80% so, for example, If you have a fair idea of how much power your customer will require, and if their power requirements mean taking a 70 a/h battery to 80%, then by recommending they go to a 100 a/h battery, they are not only likely to get 3x the operating life but should they need more power, they already have it.

No one with real experience designs systems to run on the border line of the maximum power of the battery, without expecting to having heaps of problems and no leeway for any changes without having to buy a new battery way before the customer should normally have to do so.

Again, you math doesn’t add up, long term, to a very economical set up.

Cheers.

I know it's easy to get caught up in these internet debates, but for what it's worth, from an outside point of view, I feel we readers can now understand where both of you are coming from and can now decide how to deal with the information you have both shared with us... so it may not be a good use of your time to continue arguing

Just my 2 cents worth - no disrespect intended.

Jason

Yep, your probably right chimpboy, gone as far as it’s going to go.

Cheers.

I think we have got as much as we can out of this thread.

Consider the debate closed

Tom