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Optima: A good battery with a terrible price, to support their extensive advertising. No, you won't find it sold at discount clubs, that would tar the image of exclusivity. Once their patent monopoly runs out, the competition should kick in but in the meantime they're making hay while the sun shines.
Flat-plate AGMs from other sources will be 30-40% less expensive, with a higher energy density since they aren't packing round "pegs" in a rectangular form factor, too. About 5-10% more AH in the same size groups.
"Sounds like a lot of charging capacity... 70 amps [for] 6 lead acid batteries (100 a.h. each) ...80% charge (mayby 6-8 hrs)..."
70 amps for 600AH of batteries? (Assuming they are 12V batteries, not 6v.) Wet cells can arguably charge at 1/5th C, so those batteries could take a 100% charge in five hours at a 120A charging rate. More like 135-140 to overcome charging losses. So with a 70A charging rate, if your charger is running flat out, I'd still expect the batteries would need ten hours or longer for a full charge cycle. That makes 6-8 hours for 80% not so bad, really. And if the PO never equalized them, of they've got some sulphate...not so bad, really. You could easily make good use of doubling your charger output though!
"Odyssey batteries...were less per a.h. than the Optimas" Funny thing about that.[g] Just about everything is, except perhaps Rolls or Surette or other industrial/commerical batteries, which are another game entirely.
A lot of solar panels were warrantied for 25 years, but as warranty claims from the harsher marine environment have added up, almost all the makers have either way shortened that, or excluded marine use.
"...the charger. ...slid back...not putting in nearly what I expected."
There are all sorts of charging logics being used. A microporocessor controlled system using PWM (as MPPT chargers do) can be fiendishly efficient. Conventional three-stage chargers (even if they are called 4 or 5 stage) simply can't match their performance, but it sounds like you charger is going way too conservatively. Probably because the Odyssey battery type is something totally new to the market, and any charger based on conventional fixed logic simply will NOT be able to accomodate it! That might be something to discuss with Victron, they might be interested in developing a smarter charge controller to work in installations with premium batteries. Heck, they might already have something in development. If not, speak to Odyssey, since a better battery is still only halfway better if there's no matching charger!
NC might very well have used manual charge control. That's effective, and one kludge might be for you to fool your charger by diddling with the charge sensor or the temp sensor, to report a false voltage back to the regulator that will work better with your batteries. Odyssey SHOULD be able to figure that out and tell you what is safe for the batteries. If they are supporting fast charge claims--they've got to tell folks how to do it safely.
"This is considerably a higher voltage than Odyssey specifies as...killing the warranty but the battery also. " Which of course says that maybe NC's claims are NOT substantiated by the maker, if you want the batteries to last. If Odyseey won't warranty them, and NC won't warranty them [g] you know which one to believe.
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