Big cat battery question

I'm driving a Catana 582 catamaran with 10 115amp hour gel batteries. This is the end of our second set each lasting three years each. I'm now faced with purchasing another set.

Any reason I can't replace the gels with golf carts?

I'm looking specificity for ramifications and reasons the concept would not work. Do cats use golf carts? Is there a reason not to?

Thanks

Scott

 

yachtwork,

Go to the Trojan web site and have a read there about batteries, gell are not the best for the application if someone can look after batteries correctly. They may be good for set and forget, as long as you expect to replace them more often...

 

you have not said what layout you have, 24 vdc? 4x6 series parallel?
yes you can use wet cell
Sounds like you have a charge problem Do you have smartcharger? when the boat is at marina? OR you are leaving them in a dischagred state to long If you do that you will really shorten the life of a battery
you can also google american battery or trace battery care
When it come to batts, there is an awful lot to know, for instance, if you have a inverter charger, a good one, you can EQUALISE the batterys, every so often, this is important, with 24 v you hold bring the charge up to say 36 in one long charge , thisdoes the equalising
Whatever you do gels charge at lower (high rate) than wet, so that will need sorting
Ak has much knowledge, but to get a real understanding search these big manufactures
i had 8 16l, they lasted bugger all time, we changed manufacturers, they are going great 5 years later on a liveaboard boat,
www.*********************

 

Boat is in charter. The electrical system is abused every way imaginable. I'm wondering about flipping, or well, gassing, or well ... I can't see why it won't work that is why I'm asking.

To answer your question about charge we have three full programable methods of charging at 24 volts. A victron 100 amp, A mastervolt 100 amp and two 100 amp alternators. No issues, just overuse and abuse.

 

in this case stay with gel, reason is , if you run wet cells dry , thats it, kaput, they will not recover, and they can be high maintanence IF they are not monitored
If you can set the up properly then you will be ok, particularly IF they dont run the inverter all day
there is guy named Bruce, we used to use him when we were in Ak, he did all alloy yachts work, try get in touch with him, and I will s ee if I can dig out his contact detail or ask BEP marine, they are very helpful