Gel Battery: Alternative to Standard AGM / LiFePO4 Batteries

[Judge]

I have LiFePO4's installed in my Magnitude but I wanted to pass along a little information I've experienced with Gel Batteries.

I purchased a Gel Battery back in January 2021 as a spare battery for one of my snowmobiles. Most power sports equipment uses AGM batteries but I read good things about Gel Hybrid AGM Batteries and got a great price so I decided to order one from Chrome Batteries.

I tend to rotate a couple battery maintainers across my snowmobiles and Spyder. The Gel Battery tends to get neglected. It hasn't been on a charger for over 3 months. I have a comparable sized regular AGM battery that also hasn't been on charger for the same period of time.

I have a higher end charger that can charge Wet, AGM and Gel batteries. It also reports SOC in addition to voltage. When I put the charger on the AGM battery its SOC was 70%, which is what I would expect.

When I put the charger on the Gel battery the charger reported the SOC as 100%! That is not what I expected; especially from a battery that is 16 months old, unused and sees a battery maintainer occasionally.

This is my first exposure to Gel batteries but wanted to throw out my experience because a Gel Deep Cycle Battery may be an option to consider over a standard AGM or even LiFePO4 batteries for RV applications.

Renogy offers Gel Deep Cycle Batteries for about $240 for 100Ah and $520 for 200Ah.

Here are some advantages of Gel batteries to consider beyond being maintenance free:


Flexible installation
AGM separator keep electrolyte absorbed in glass mat and still. Battery can be used or positioned in any orientation.

Longer lifespan in extreme weather
Gel cell electrolyte prevent electrolyte being evaporated in high temperature or being frozen in low temperature, which keep battery in high performance in extreme weather. Extremely safe When excessive gas production by inappropriate charging occurs, safety valves will automatically emit the gas to prevent battery cracked.

Long standby life, Better cycle performance
Anti-corrosion lead-calcium alloy plate provides longer float charging life. AGM separator can trap electrolyte and prevent active materials on positive plate dropping at the same time. Moreover, it gives better deep discharge cycle performance.

Longer shelf life
Special lead-calcium alloy plates make lower self-discharge for longer shelf life.

High rate performance
Low inner resistance allows higher discharging and charging current for better performance in high rate application

[lwmcguir]

Originally Posted by Judge

I have LiFePO4's installed in my Magnitude but I wanted to pass along a little information I've experienced with Gel Batteries.

I purchased a Gel Battery back in January 2021 as a spare battery for one of my snowmobiles. Most power sports equipment uses AGM batteries but I read good things about Gel Hybrid AGM Batteries and got a great price so I decided to order one from Chrome Batteries.

I tend to rotate a couple battery maintainers across my snowmobiles and Spyder. The Gel Battery tends to get neglected. It hasn't been on a charger for over 3 months. I have a comparable sized regular AGM battery that also hasn't been on charger for the same period of time.

I have a higher end charger that can charge Wet, AGM and Gel batteries. It also reports SOC in addition to voltage. When I put the charger on the AGM battery its SOC was 70%, which is what I would expect.

When I put the charger on the Gel battery the charger reported the SOC as 100%! That is not what I expected; especially from a battery that is 16 months old, unused and sees a battery maintainer occasionally.

This is my first exposure to Gel batteries but wanted to throw out my experience because a Gel Deep Cycle Battery may be an option to consider over a standard AGM or even LiFePO4 batteries for RV applications.

Renogy offers Gel Deep Cycle Batteries for about $240 for 100Ah and $520 for 200Ah.

Here are some advantages of Gel batteries to consider beyond being maintenance free:


Flexible installation
AGM separator keep electrolyte absorbed in glass mat and still. Battery can be used or positioned in any orientation.

Longer lifespan in extreme weather
Gel cell electrolyte prevent electrolyte being evaporated in high temperature or being frozen in low temperature, which keep battery in high performance in extreme weather. Extremely safe When excessive gas production by inappropriate charging occurs, safety valves will automatically emit the gas to prevent battery cracked.

Long standby life, Better cycle performance
Anti-corrosion lead-calcium alloy plate provides longer float charging life. AGM separator can trap electrolyte and prevent active materials on positive plate dropping at the same time. Moreover, it gives better deep discharge cycle performance.

Longer shelf life
Special lead-calcium alloy plates make lower self-discharge for longer shelf life.

High rate performance
Low inner resistance allows higher discharging and charging current for better performance in high rate application

GEL batteries came standard in our GEM cars for years. They held up well and they would have been the old technology back in early 2000's

The new and improved should be better yet. Don't know what they put in the GEM cars since Polaris bought them

[RACarvalho]

Thank you for sharing.
when winterizing my boat I used to take the AGM battery back home, give it a full charge and leave it in the (heated) garage floor...

Every time when I took it back to the boat 4-5 months later it was still "100% SOC"....

[Judge]

Originally Posted by RACarvalho

Thank you for sharing.
when winterizing my boat I used to take the AGM battery back home, give it a full charge and leave it in the (heated) garage floor...

Every time when I took it back to the boat 4-5 months later it was still "100% SOC"....

Interesting...... my snowmobile batteries are Yuasa AGM batteries and if they stay off the charger (also a heated garage floor), they would be down in the 70 - 80% SOC after ~ 3 months.

I also have an AGM in my Jeep and when it sits in the heated garage while I am down in Florida, it won't hold 100% SOC for that length of time.

[Bob Denman]

I just went to AGMs in my Tiffin...
(Group 31: versus the old Group 27 FLAs...)
They DO seem to be holding a charge better: but the test is only a matter of weeks so far.

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Judge

Interesting...... my snowmobile batteries are Yuasa AGM batteries and if they stay off the charger (also a heated garage floor), they would be down in the 70 - 80% SOC after ~ 3 months.

I also have an AGM in my Jeep and when it sits in the heated garage while I am down in Florida, it won't hold 100% SOC for that length of time.

I had a real marine grade (cant remember the brand... Dell?) battery and for the time I had the boat ( 5 years) it was like that.
The slip I had didn't have power but the boat had a 10W solar panel with a morningstar solar controller.
we did have an inverter to run everything but there was no parasitic losses when the inverter was off so I think this slow charge rate combined with zero parasitic losses contributed to that...