My 22 year old AGM battery….. that still works!

[91cavgt]

So in 2009, I started my solar journey. I went on to Craigslist and bought a cheap, used AGM battery. It was a Hawker brand 50 amp/hr battery for $40. The guy that sold it to me stated that he bought it new and he was a teacher. He had used the battery in the classroom to teach kids about batteries. Because of this, I figured it was a good buy since it had probably not had a hard life. I hooked it up with a Coleman 19 watt solar panel, a cheap SunPower PWM solar controller, and an old 300 watt power inverter(which this power inverter is still working to this day as well). I quickly found that the battery voltage would drop pretty quick with a moderate load just because of the small size of the system. So for a couple of years, the battery was used to power a small 19 pound thrust trolling motor. Eventually, the battery was used to power a small 12v LED light bulb that was setup to automatically turn on at dusk and off at dawn. The LED light pulled less than 0.25 of an amp of current so the battery was never pushed hard at all, even with a couple of cloudy days in a row. After a few years of this setup, the battery got moved into a storage unit for a year. When I removed the battery from storage, I was shocked to see that it still had a voltage reading of 12.0 volts! So I put it on to charge with a 1 amp charger and found that it’s new resting voltage was 12.3 volts. So, since the battery was still working, so it got put to use again. This time, it was put into my enclosed cargo trailer to power a 4” computer fan used for ventilation. It is charged with a 160 watt solar panel on the roof, and an EPEVER Tracer(I love those charge controllers!) 10 amp MPPT charge controller. It has now been used 24/7 in this cargo trailer for a couple of years now, and is still in use to this day.


So earlier this year, I contacted Hawker batteries to let them know this battery is still in service! After sending them several pictures along with the serial number, they informed me that the battery had been built in February of 2002!!! They were so excited to hear about this battery that they wanted to use this battery’s story for promotional purposes. So, the story of the “Ageless battery”(their name) will be coming out on their social media sometime in the future.

So, I present, the ageless battery.

 

[Suijkerbuijk]

It can be done.
Old battery do not mean its a bad beult .
Its a sealt battery so its a agm or gel type model.
If it have big plates inside to compensation the ampere pull. ( Start battery use thin plate so the ampere go faster out of the battery)
Means the fluid stay good in one place .
Do not mean the new battery from the same company will do the same .

Funny clip but its true .

 

[seneysolar]

So in 2009, I started my solar journey. I went on to Craigslist and bought a cheap, used AGM battery. It was a Hawker brand 60 amp/hr battery for $40. The guy that sold it to me stated that he bought it new and he was a teacher. He had used the battery in the classroom to teach kids about batteries. Because of this, I figured it was a good buy since it had probably not had a hard life. I hooked it up with a Coleman 19 watt solar panel, a cheap SunPower PWM solar controller, and an old 300 watt power inverter(which this power inverter is still working to this day as well). I quickly found that the battery voltage would drop pretty quick with a moderate load just because of the small size of the system. So for a couple of years, the battery was used to power a small 19 pound thrust trolling motor. Eventually, the battery was used to power a small 12v LED light bulb that was setup to automatically turn on at dusk and off at dawn. The LED light pulled less than 0.25 of an amp of current so the battery was never pushed hard at all, even with a couple of cloudy days in a row. After a few years of this setup, the battery got moved into a storage unit for a year. When I removed the battery from storage, I was shocked to see that it still had a voltage reading of 12.0 volts! So I put it on to charge with a 1 amp charger and found that it’s new resting voltage was 12.3 volts. So, since the battery was still working, so it got put to use again. This time, it was put into my enclosed cargo trailer to power a 4” computer fan used for ventilation. It is charged with a 160 watt solar panel on the roof, and an EPEVER Tracer(I love those charge controllers!) 10 amp MPPT charge controller. It has now been used 24/7 in this cargo trailer for a couple of years now, and is still in use to this day.


So earlier this year, I contacted Hawker batteries to let them know this battery is still in service! After sending them several pictures along with the serial number, they informed me that the battery had been built in February of 2002!!! They were so excited to hear about this battery that they wanted to use this battery’s story for promotional purposes. So, the story of the “Ageless battery”(their name) will be coming out on their social media sometime in the future.

So, I present, the ageless battery.

I have a few Hawker batteries that i removed from aircraft. I re-purposed them into a portable power station using a 1000w inverter. Its heavy but the thing will run a long time!

 

[91cavgt]

So I stopped by my semi local (40 miles away) Batteries Plus store to get a capacity test done. Unfortunately, they only had a carbon pile tester. Fortunately, it tested WAY better than I expected. 392 CCA is what it tested at. Of course, the voltage was low but I expected that.

 

[corndog]

Well I sure can't beat 22 years but just today I realized that the lead batteries in my little diy battery generator box are no newer than 2012 and they're still trucking along.

 

[Substrate]

Oh man, that's an Enersys / Hawker Pure-Lead (tppl, thin-plate, pure lead). So nice...

I would love to cycle that. I'm not sure about going hog wild after 22 years, but what keeps them alive is while staying within specs, is not to pamper them. High current charging and so forth. They degrade if they are tickled to death. Oh, I'd so love to put some juice to that, but be on the careful side.

TPPL agm's were my gateway into LFP. Force feeding .5 to 1C into some other Enersys cells and nary a complaint. Blew my mind.