Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Boy, AGM batteries are heavy!!!!!

I fnally picked up (with difficulty) a couple of 4D size AGM batteries. (about 200AH each). They weigh about 125lb each. The battery tray is quite a bit bigger than them, and is rated to support 400 pounds.
I made up some spacers to keep the batteries from sliding around, and strapped them in.

It works pretty well, but I may end up with some sort of turnbuckle hold-down to replace the straps.

The only problem occurs when going up a hill. The stock latch is completely inadequate to keep the tray from sliding open. I cannot understand how the manufacturer thinks that dinky latch can hold back 250lbs. You may remember that latch from when I installed the slide:


So, I added a couple of additional latches.

Made 'em out of 1" wide, 1/4" aluminum stock. Two pieces are VHB'd together to make a 1/2" thick unit. Perfect clearance. The pieces are long enough to just touch the top of the tray (under the lip) and the bottom of the base. They are held in place by 1/4" bolts and nylocks.

3 comments:

  1. 125 lbs each, wow, technology has not made much progress here, that's a lot of lead !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wondering about those straps, is there not a potentially better way to immobilize them with some metal bars of some sort?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I dp want to improve upon these straps. They're what I had hanging around.
      I thought about metal brackets, but right now, I'm leaning toward ratcheting tie-down straps. The most difficult thing with the current setup is re-tightening as the straps stretch a bit.

      Delete