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Telecom Industrial AGM Batteries (Why Not)

Rolling7s

New Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2020
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Hello I've been reading a lot of the articles on your DIY forum and have learned quite a lot much of I had never heard of by the "Solar Experts" (LOL) your all a very bright and educated bunch of young adults so I figured I would ask for the hard earned or learned knowledge of your forums members for a problem that I was told by every single So Called Solar Expert I would have but has never occurred.

This may be quite long and rambling so I apologize in advance but answers to this question or uninformed advice has been driving me crazy and I am tired of the BS, the half baked ideas, the flat out lies or made up explanations I get from the solar equipment dealers sales people all trying to change my mind and sell me something that I think are inferior and much more expensive products in regards to AGM batteries.

You guys and gals are just smart people experimenting and learning from each others triumphs and losses but no matter what your always learning and moving forward and also none of you have anything to gain or profit from by selling me on a product I don't want or need and maybe I am wrong and my experiences are all a fluke and I realize beforehand that most of you will rightly so tell me to go Lithium or LiFPO4 or some other chemistry I don't understand but as the saying goes "you cant teach a old dog new tricks" well I am plenty old and am quite happy with my current set of tricks but please give me the benefit of your knowledge keeping in mind I'm sticking with sealed lead acid batteries till the bitter end ?

I have been a strict Outback Power customer including their batteries for as long as I have had Off Grid Solar almost 20 years. A little over 6 years back we had a mishap while out of the country on business and sadly destroyed 2 strings of 10 each Outback 200 AH (AGM) batteries 20 in total. I had them on my trailer taking them into town to purchase new ones and a man at a gas station asked me which of the cellphone companies I worked for? After telling him none he informed me that my Outback Batteries looked exactly like the Telecom Tower batteries his brother sold for a living he told me that before I spent the $12,000 replacing my bad ones to call his brother he explained that when AT&T, Sprint or Verizon purchased batteries to save money they buy enough to fulfill what their needs will be that year and sometimes the next so I took his number and promised to call.

I called that day and his brother told me to hold off that he could and would replace all 20 batteries with "NEW" not "USED" much higher quality, longer lasting industrial ones for under half (1/2) the price that I was planning on spending.

Long story short he sent me literature on batteries that looked a lot like my Outbacks but were marked Built For or Property of Sprint Telecom the AH ratings were a little more than mine and they weighed another 15 pounds heavier so I called around to check and every solar shop told me they were useless for solar and wouldn't last 6 months, but all invited me to please come purchase theirs for much, much more money LOL

I then took a few days and did some research on my own and found out they were built almost exactly the same as the best AGM Solar batteries I could find but with much purer alloys, better fiberglass matting, stronger casings, 100 lb torque cable mounting bolts or bus bars if preferred and all models and brands were built to much stricter higher quality standards required by the Huge Telecom Giants and then best of all they had a design life of 15 to 20 years on float (Yes 15 to 20 years).

He had several brands, sizes and AH ratings to choose from and during my research I also found out they were all built by East Penn, Deka, Trojan or their owners or subsidiaries the best manufacturers I could find, everything sounded much to good to be true.

I had many questions and concerns so he did his sales pitch then he explained the reason I was getting them so cheap was the Telecom companies have strict shelf life standards and after so many months on the shelf they sell them off at a loss even though they still tested exactly as when first manufactured, I learned its very expensive and time consuming hauling and replacing 150 lb batteries out in the middle of nowhere in mostly harsh terrain and weather.

Over 6 years later I have not had one ounce of problems and that's with my almost daily rugged use and abuse.

My Off Grid Paradise is located in Northern Arizona bordering the Navajo Nation Reservation where the housing is all very remote and truly Off Grid and almost exclusively powered by solar panels and batteries.

Since my first introduction to Telecom batteries I have helped many, many Navajos haul and help replace their aging or totaly shot batteries and in addition saving them a small fortune in money that most don't have to spare.

In my 6 year experience with hundreds of batteries maybe 3 batteries out of every 100 goes south and needs replacing

Since first being introduced to these batteries I have learned many things and talked with many experts on the manufacturing side and not the sales and most just wink and smile and tell me that all their companies batteries are built to the high quality standards.

Well I've purchased and used their top of the line batteries marked as for Solar so I know this is not true but I'm hoping I'm not just a crazy old man thinking he knows more than he does LOL

Please give me any advice you feel might help me understand my experience with Telecom batteries and again I apologize for the novel I'm just far beyond curious

Thanks Again


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A company I worked for around 25 years ago used to do maintenance for a telecomms equipment manufacturer and did battery swap outs. I snagged a few and they worked fine for quite a while. They weren't used as cyclic batteries, standby power only, so probably didn't really have that many cycles on them but were retired due to age related capacity reduction.

Most of the time I see something being marketed as a solar battery probably the best application of 'solar' would be that it is probably best being hurled into the sun. There was even a thread on the forum recently where someone appears to have been ripped off with a 'solar' battery being hugely under weight for the claimed capacity.

(also in Oz)

Off topic meandering... Part of my job at that company was fixing Canon 132 col high speed ink printers. Back then using cheapie ink was pretty much a death warrant for the print head. Sometimes they could be unclogged pumping alcohol through them but more often than not some jets just wouldn't clear so you either put up with gaps in the print, or opened the wallet and bought a new print head (not a consumable like they are today, or in the low end back then).

A pathology lab that had a bank of the things found that out the hard way. (it may have been Epson, can't be sure what they were, memory fades, but I did work on Canons too)
 
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Energy storage is energy storage regardless of the medium and the $/Wh/life-cycle is generally king. The trick is if you can trust the datasheet (assuming there is one). Agree with @george65 telecom's are pretty careful to make cost conscious decisions, and with @gnubie that weight reveals a lot. That doesn't mean there aren't caveats with one type of storage over another (e.g., LA lose power when they get cold), but no reason for a book on it as they're discussed in the Battery FAQ.
 
I agree in principle with the logic behind a given industry 'demanding' more reliability than your average consumer, but I don't see any qualification body distinguishing between who can & cannot slap the word "TELCOM" on the side of their batteries, or their ebay auction for that matter.

We're therefore dependent on someone such as yourself who is "in the know" who can get us started identifying good brands & sellers.

Then the forum is regularly tasked to identify whether a new seller is honest or supported by shills, etc. That vetting process begins and has begun.

The real adventure starts when good brands are contacted. Wholesalers whose models assume well informed buyers of batteries by the pallet, may find themselves taken off guard buy a bunch of unprepared unprofessional people trying to call them and demand answers to consumer level questions and trying to purchase consumer level quantities.

I'm not attacking you. I hope you know that. I like the idea of using industrial level equipment, especially if it keeps something out of the landfill for a few years.
 
So many cell sites in the Philippines, and they are mandated to replace the batteries every XX years.

In places where there are lots of power outages (rural), the batteries are well used. In some (urban) areas, they have been on float for pretty much their whole lives.

They actually have to dispose of them and give a certificate of destruction or something. This being the Philippines (corruption and doctoring of papers), they sometimes do not destroy them and sell them off, still with many quality years of service left in the batteries.

I'm actually waiting for some (a friend works in the telecom industry) and said every 6 months, they have a list of "for disposal" batteries.
 
Welcome Rolling7s to the forums. I too am exclusively using lead as it requires excessive finances and care for me to properly maintain a Lithium battery. Translation: I am very cheap and intellectually lazy.

Back in the 80’s I worked for Generac designing automatic transfer switches for gensets that provided backup power to remote Telcon locations. I guess this started my fasciation with battery backup systems.

The Telcon towers operated on DC power, and grid power continually kept the batteries charged. When grid power was lost the genset would auto start, warm-up and the transfer switch would send generator power to recharge the batteries.

In my opinion (nothing scientific here) the batteries operated more like a starting battery than a deep-cycle, and had to withstand constantly being operated in float. The amount of time the batteries actually powered the tower was relatively short.

My hypothesis is somewhat supported by the PowerSafe SDS advertising “Thin Plate” technology. Deep cycle batteries have thicker plates.

Telcom (and server UPS) batteries are typically replaced by date and not remaining capacity. It would be great if there was a reliable source to purchase these batteries as second-life, not unlike the rapidly growing market for second-life electric car batteries.
 
Thanks and WOW all you gals & guys (must be political correct) LOL responses I had to work out of town last week or so and didn't get any notifications for of your replies so Thank You Again.

Thank you for confirming I wasn't totally crazy with my experiences with my using Telecom AGM Batteries and making me feel much more comfortable about helping my neighbors out on the Navajo Nation save hard to come by money on a far superior battery system even at the 50 to 60% discounted price they are still a chunk of money.

I just seen a post on the first time builds it was like looking at my newest battery bank of Deka Unigy 1's they are powerful and heavy LOL ?

I will have to check out the battery forum I didn't realize there was one and I want to thank you guys from Australia I love the Country and especially the people it's my favorite vacation stop when traveling Asia on business.

Well you guys "oh" and gals have definitely helped teach a old dog some new tricks and saved me some money in the process also.

So Go Aussies ?
 
I agree in principle with the logic behind a given industry 'demanding' more reliability than your average consumer, but I don't see any qualification body distinguishing between who can & cannot slap the word "TELCOM" on the side of their batteries, or their ebay auction for that matter.

We're therefore dependent on someone such as yourself who is "in the know" who can get us started identifying good brands & sellers.

Then the forum is regularly tasked to identify whether a new seller is honest or supported by shills, etc. That vetting process begins and has begun.

The real adventure starts when good brands are contacted. Wholesalers whose models assume well informed buyers of batteries by the pallet, may find themselves taken off guard buy a bunch of unprepared unprofessional people trying to call them and demand answers to consumer level questions and trying to purchase consumer level quantities.

I'm not attacking you. I hope you know that. I like the idea of using industrial level equipment, especially if it keeps something out of the landfill for a few years.
 
I agree in principle with the logic behind a given industry 'demanding' more reliability than your average consumer, but I don't see any qualification body distinguishing between who can & cannot slap the word "TELCOM" on the side of their batteries, or their ebay auction for that matter.

We're therefore dependent on someone such as yourself who is "in the know" who can get us started identifying good brands & sellers.

Then the forum is regularly tasked to identify whether a new seller is honest or supported by shills, etc. That vetting process begins and has begun.

The real adventure starts when good brands are contacted. Wholesalers whose models assume well informed buyers of batteries by the pallet, may find themselves taken off guard buy a bunch of unprepared unprofessional people trying to call them and demand answers to consumer level questions and trying to purchase consumer level quantities.

I'm not attacking you. I hope you know that. I like the idea of using industrial level equipment, especially if it keeps something out of the landfill for a few years.
Thank you for the reply I appreciate the honesty all I can give is my experiences I've had using them I have a motto try to learn 1 thing per day it could just be a person's name or trying to just suck up a little bit of the vast knowledge this forum has to offer!

As for Will Prowse I give up hes like Sheldon on that Big Bang Theory way to smart for me but I love his videos ?

I don't mind turning anyone that wants or needs batteries they are free to call my contact I used to keep it as my private contact but after seeing that he goes through hundreds of the Telecom batteries a week selling to "PREPPERS" living way Off Grid I'm no longer worried about myself going without LOL

He has a shipping warehouse in Texas one in Colorado and a small shop by me in the City of Page Arizona on Lake Powell the most beautiful place on earth.

He can be grumpy sometimes but that's his business Solar and Wind Energy and now that hes older mostly the sales of Telecom batteries to his Solar and Prepper customers I don't know if there is a way to PM me but anyone needing or interested hit me up I have both his business and cellphone numbers or just call him 928-645-4002 tell him the gambler sent you to him Hahaha ?

Anyways thanks again for the feedback and the knowledge you all let me have ?
 
Quick Question can Deka High Rate 5000 be used succesfully in an off grid situation?
 
Quick Question can Deka High Rate 5000 be used succesfully in an off grid situation?

No. Longevity will be lacking.

"Using the latest AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) technology to lower internal resistance for superior high-rate, short-term discharges, Deka Unigy 31HR5000 High Rate Series deliver critical power when needed. With a five-year design life, Deka Unigy 31HR5000 High Rate Series continues to deliver reliable standby power when conventional standby batteries might have already failed. Deka Unigy High Rate batteries go through a series of over 250 stringent quality control checks and extensive testing to ensure the industry’s most accurate and dependable ratings."

Those are intended for UPS-like operations where they sit around for long periods fully charged and have to deliver high power but for short duration while a secondary power source comes online.
 
You just gotta' know. MOST telcom batteries are ups/storage and not meant for cycling.

The SBS Powersafe are actually capable of cycling. They are also pure-lead, rather than conventional agm which means you can hit them hard, and have higher voltage under load.

The problem is that those who specify the SBS Powersafe commercially are actually cycling them well before you get them. Otherwise, they would choose a standby/ups version instead.

So depending on how cycled these are, yes, you may get some life out of them. But, in the next rack over where these came from are the ups / standby types, and you'll get the pleasure of using them for only a very short while, and recycling them quite soon as an industrial type.

So that's what one has to watch out for - unless you KNOW YOUR CELLS, it is easy for someone to make a sweeping statement about Telco Batteries being useful. In most cases, they are NOT - under normal circumstances.
 
The SBS Powersafe are actually capable of cycling. They are also pure-lead, rather than conventional agm which means you can hit them hard, and have higher voltage under load.
I have 4 x 190Ah SBS Powersafe batteries.

Their main purpose in life is a 48V battery bank for my grid outage backup system, so I'm using them exactly as the telco/data centre they came out of were. I load tested them and they are in really good condition. When I add some solar PV to the system then they'll also act as a bit of ballast as I plan to take the pool pump off-grid.
 
They also still need to be vented. My AGMs eventually died (after 10 yrs?) but did start to outgas when they died. You could really smell the rotten egg smell... so be aware.
 
Yep - Powersafe can be cycled. On just has to be very cautious about how makers play word-games.

One may stipulate standby / ups - which means float only. Another may say "sure, these can be cycled", but fail to mention that the amount of cycles is perhaps about 20 cycles for emergency cross-application use. :)
 
I have 8pcs of Powersafe SBF170 batteries on my offgrid 5KW installation configured for 48V. I looked at a lot of "telecom" batteries and most are not rated for cyclic duty. The Powersafe batteries are indeed rated for either cyclic or standby UPS use. The guy I got them from maintains batteries for data centers, cell sites and much more, he told me the Powersafe batteries have had better luck in the field than some of the others and that is one reason they are preferred. The ones I got are take-outs but so far (just over a month) they are working great, time will tell...... I paid $600 for all 8 of them so its not a huge risk. I needed some sort of batteries for my solar install to get me started, this was the cheap way out.

Bottom line, not all telecom batteries are equal, some are rated for cyclic (hybrid) use, others are not.
 
I have 8pcs of Powersafe SBF170 batteries on my offgrid 5KW installation.
How deep do you generally cycle them?

There has been some talk about running hybrid lead and lifepo4 banks, you could add in 100 Ah of LiFePo4 as an experiment to maybe prolong their useful lifespans by a lot, because they'll cycle a lot shallower.
 
How deep do you generally cycle them?

There has been some talk about running hybrid lead and lifepo4 banks, you could add in 100 Ah of LiFePo4 as an experiment to maybe prolong their useful lifespans by a lot, because they'll cycle a lot shallower.
I looked at the Powersafe datasheet for hybrid use and it gives a chart showing number of cycles (life) vs depth of discharge. Of course the less deep the discharge the longer they last. As a data point, the chart shows 2000 cycles for a 40% DOD. Wanting the batteries to last me a while is why I went with 8 batteries, 340AH total capacity at 48V. They are used but very healthy, I'm sure they won't make their rated AH any more but probably not too far off. Generally they get discharged about 35-40% so far. I am running the whole house including a 2 ton conventional AC split system (NOT a mini-split). The AC is the biggest load, about 2300W and living in South Carolina the AC runs quite a bit although much less at night. So far, highest battery draw I have seen was about 75amps, that was with the AC running and the microwave going, along with normal mild household loads like lights, internet, refrigerator and such.

Interesting idea of a hybrid Li / AGM battery setup. Problem I would see would be charging voltages/specs differing. THe current draw would not be equal between the two types of battery either. I am using a hybrid inverter, the charging/inverter are all in the same package.
 
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