Fitting mobility 12volt AGM battery.

hi css28, can you provide a link or more info on where available? thanks!

 

that's what is so confusing. claims of low prices, but i cannot find.

 

Yeah, it would still be about $40 to $50 less than a Prius specific battery, and hopefully last longer as well. Still a win win.

The OP did mention some great prices in the UK for these batteries though. Or was that in £, which would make them about 1.5ish times more expensive?

 

John (Britprius) would have quoted prices in £'s so yeah, x 1.5 to give ~US$.

 

he said $65. for the smaller one, but i couldn't find a price for the larger sks size.

 

That is incredibly cheap, and battery prices have gone up a bit from when those prices were published. I don't know whether it is the prolific extent of mobility scooters in the UK which allows for economies of scale to kick in or something else, but in this neck of the woods an equivalent battery (can't get Ritar) is in the region of NZ$256 (inc tax) + Shipping NZ$12 (~US$183.40 + US$8.60)

Good luck with your search.

 

same here.

 

So Britprius, could I get away with a battery without posts (just M6 threads) that is the wrong way round?

Cheap brands are €140 for the correct posts and €90 for one with the posts the wrong way round. (Edit: the photo seems correct, but the drawing with post-layout is the 'wrong way round')
(150$ vs. 95$)

Both prices are the absolute lowest I could find. The first one also easily goes for close to 200€ on other sites.
I'm still opening your pics from the first page to see if that answers this question, but somehow my computer needs half an hour per picture... but by the looks of it you reversed the plug/connector that is covered by the red plastic part to point to the rear of the car, giving me the impression there might be some slack in the wiring. In case the groundwire would be the issue: I have all the tools to make a longer one.


I cannot for the life of me find a Ritar dealer here...

 

Thanks for the prompt reply! The cheap battery has a seemingly correct pic, but a drawing of the plus and minus layout that shows them the wrong way round, hence me assuming it is the wrong polarity so to speak.

90 euro (+ 7.50 shipping) is too good to pass up since we had the dreaded red triangle yesterday, so I think I will order that one if I cannot find another solution within the next few days. Still on the original battery (~Feb 2009), even though my initial posts about it not being perfect are a few years old by now Just never bit the bullet yet.

 

As always I am utterly indecisive. Is the brandless cheapo the same quality as a Victron* or a Ritar? Am I not wasting money by trying to save it? I hate myself...

So it seems I found a Ritar... There is no mention of the brand anywhere in the description, so just pure coincidence I saw the pics and maybe they are just sample pics and they sell whatever brand they get their hands on that week.... I mailed them if they could get the 55Ah or if they knew of other channels carrying them. The 33Ah is 80€.

Would you take the brandless 55Ah@C20 (45Ah@C5) or the Ritar 33Ah@C10? Both are ~95€ with all shipping


(*I am aware Victron probably does not make batteries, but their reputation is so good, they cannot afford to print their name on crap batteries)

PS: they are looking into the layout of the brandless 55Ah and calling me back with a definitive answer. Edit: the photo is 'leading' according to the seller, so plus is LEFT, so you were correct . I guess that's what I needed to push me over the edge, it is on its way.

 

Battery arrived, stuck at making it fit. I can remove the clamp-down construction of the original battery, but then I have nothing to clamp it down with. Any instructions/pics for it?

Edit: I think I may get away with slightly enlarging the mounting holes of the bracket. Will report back.

 

The biggest problem is not the rod on the side of the car, but the 'guide' that is ín the front of the car'. The battery doesn't fit between the back of the car (metalwork under the rearlight/groundingbolt) and the front of the mountingbracket. Will post pics.

The mountingbracket is a two piece construction, spotwelded together. Biggest part is for the rod, smaller part (pointing up in below pic) is for preventing front-rear movement of the battery. I can imagine that a bigger battery would only have the single-part construction. Just conjecture though.




Edit: solution was to remove the front guide. The battery is larger so it isn't going to slide a whole lot from front to back anyway.

Drilled out the spotwelds and you end up with this. I only used the right part with the rod.



It was a very tight fit, the HV battery vent hardly fits, but I managed to get it all back in.

Did you shorten the round legs of the corner-floor-part that rest on the battery? I didn't and now it is slightly elevated (few millimeters).

 

Just what I was looking for thank you!

It has been a few more years is the same battery still working great?

Also I am in Utah USA, so it gets a bit colder here does this battery stand up to the cold? I am assuming you get cold weather where you are, I am hitting -15F.

 

It's +10degreeC here (50F?). I parked up and after 10 minutes came back and went into the secret menu.

The voltage was a mere 11.9V and dropped further when turning the headlights on. I expected more from my new battery
Upon arrival it was pretty full: it was charged in an hour or so with a 3.8A charger on AGM setting (I didn't time it but it was faster than expected and wintersetting=AGM setting according to manual).

Will try again tomorrow morning.
BTW, it the connector on top of the battery just a connector with possibly a fuse for the white wire? The slide-connector for the ~8Ga seems flimsy for 100A (maximum current of the inverter and I imagine I will see peaks >>50A when I add my second amp going from inverter through this connector to batterypost and to amps). Maybe I should just screw this down to the post directly as well.

 

Britprius, thank you for the detail about the battery replacement.
More nitpicking: EVERY time you used the contraction "it's", the word to use is "its".
"IT'S" means "it is" or "it has". The possessive form of "IT" is "ITS". His, hers, ours, yours, theirs, its.

Also, there and their are not the same word.
THERE is also a gel version . . .
. . . enhances THEIR life span.

 

This is not a grammar forum. SMH

There's also the "autocorrect feature" on many electronic devices, so maybe you can cut everyone a bit of slack.