Anyone using trojan scs 225 batteries?

[Rover]

Looking at buying a set of 6 Trojan SCS 225 batteries (12V 130A/Hr @ 20hr) . This is to replace my damaged bank from Hurricane Irene (el cheapo Walwart g27's)

I can get the SCS 225's at ~ 140$ each

Anyone with experience with them, please provide your thoughts on them.

Rover

[ghurd]

Not that exact battery...

I think you would be better off with 6V golf cart batteries.
Roughly the same cost (at Sam's or Costco) for a pair.

I know you are thinking ~210AH or 260AH for $140, but a pair of Sam' 6V golf cart beat a pair of 12V Trojans hands down.  That's back when Trojan listed only AH on the deep cycles, instead of reserve minutes and CA/CCA.
I know the 6Vs last a LOT longer, especially if regularly abused.
G-

[Rover]

Thanks for the input Ghurd.

Actualy my current thought process is the following (I'm sure flaws wil be pointed out )

1. Thought about Sam's club. But
A) Not a member
B) There seems to be some discussion about what their 6V batteries actually are, seems they change their sources, etc ... could be exides, could be johnson controls
C) The batteries have mixed reviews as of late

2. 6 Volt vs 12V in my appliction
A) Like to reserve the ability to go 24V on bank,  and have at least 700 A/hr on bank (@12V). With 6 12V (decent quality deep cells) I can do that with 6 batteries, with 6V, will require 8 (unless I go to L16.. nope too pricy).

3. Pricing. (excluding SAM's)
a) T105's ..can't get a price locally (figure be the same as the 12V scs 225)
b) T145's ... locally ~ 190.00 (6V 260 A/Hr @20 hr) ... so 2 of those = 2 225's @12V ... 100$ difference per 2, 300$ per 6

4. Budget...  trying to stay within remaining insurance funds ~ 1,000$

5. Use... Typical draw down no more than 20%

6. Boaters love em as house banks .. and cheaper here than rest of country, typical 225 is 200$ ... location seems to drop price here.


Honestly I'd rather have 8 t105 equivalents.. (maybe I'll get a guest pass to SAM's and see what they have) .

[ghurd]

Might look around for Interstate dealers.  Here, the local wholesale distributer can get me any equivelent battery I ever asked about, and a very large percentage cheaper than Trojan.

Around here, everybody used to use Trojans, but their warranty (or lack of ability to actually use it), and cost increases made them... uh... "not nearly as popular" as Interstate.  Seems like it happened around the same time they changed the info listed on the stickers.  The newer ones they were pushing (at that time) were less reliable than the earlier ones.

I don't recall where you are.  We did a KY houseboat thing.  It had a 12V system with two 8Ds.  I imagine all of them were the same.  The bigger boats probably had more than two.  We'd shut of the desiel genny all night.  TV, standard house fridge, lighting, etc didn't dip them down too bad all night.
G-

[birdhouse]

i use trojan t-125's (6v) eight of them series/parallel for a 24v bank.  they've served me well for a few years now, though i don't abuse them much.  paying for them is not my favorite part.  in hind sight, i think i would've gone with interstate or sams batteries. 

if you've got a certain budget, you can X amount of trojans, or X++ amount of sams/interstates, and by the nature of batteries, you'd discharge a X++ bank less than the X bank and therefore they "should" last as long if not longer.  i hope that makes sense.  probably could have written it better. 

anyways, let us know what you decide!

adam

[Rover]

Thanks to all for the feedback, and those of you who contacted me offline...

I picked up 6 golf cart batteries from Sam's club today

Duracell 6V (ecg2), 89$ each , 230 A/Hr @20hr rate, made by East Penn, Look to be rhe same as a Deka GC15 .

In other words, I no longer care about the Trojan 12V (I wiil probably pick up 2 more of the bats at Sams , I was out of cores )

Rover

[ghurd]

I was out of cores )

Depending on who is there at the time... they have taken 2, 4.5, and 7AH as cores for 220AH 6V.
Might want to ask if there is a core size requirement when you do the core exchange.
I ask first.  Half the time they tell me "We don't care how small it is, a battery is a battery".
THEN the cores are retrieved from the truck.

Also, in some areas, the sales tax on the core is not refunded.
Batteries.  Alternators.  Starters. Etc.
But the sales tax on the core is not charged if the core is 'returned' when the purchase is made, because the core charge is added, then subtracted, to the total taxable sale.
It doesn't sound like much money, but it can be 'significant' enough to take scrap batteries with you when making the purchase. 
And it saves an extra trip. 
G-

[Bruce S]

G-
I've done that as well. Keep dried up 5Ahr units just for this. Older guys are Sam's is best to work with:-) they understand even when saying I keep the bigger car batts to make jump starter units:-)
Roverlooks like you got a good deal. One small system I helped with is 3 years old they're still going strong:-)
Cheers
Bruce S