6v battery bank conversion- help and suggestions please
 

So I'm getting ready to convert my bank over to 6v batteries. I'm thinking 4 of them beneath the rear seats.

I currently have 9 12v batteries, 4 in each rear locker, 1 beneath the rear seat.

They are on a shore charger, can I retain the same charger?

I'm sick of having my lockers bombarded by these batteries. I have no room for ballast, and maintenance is a pain in the ass.
I'm going to upgrade to the 750# sacks in my rear lockers.

What batteries are you guys using and where is the best place to get them?

I have 4, 6 volts in my sanger and they are great! I keep them on a 3 bank, 30 amp charger and am on the 5th year with them. They are insterstate workhorses models. Not sure if you can fit them under the rear bench.

What kind of 12V are you running now? I run 2 XSPower XP3000's and run 4 amps with one being a HUGE power hog. Very inefficient. I can blast my stereo for about 4.5 hours before needing a charge. I'd imagine 4 of those would suit your needs pretty well. Just throwing out options.

I need something I can go a weekend on, with a good 6-7 hrs a day of play time.
This bank does that quite well. It's just a hog of space.
I have an sd2, sd4, and 2600 hifonics Brutus.
No clue on what's in there now, some kind of gray AGM battery. Came with the boat and they are in battery boxes. Haven't taken one out to see the brand. But I'm guessing they are at least a good 5 years old

Where do you have your batteries?

4xs power XP3000's would be more than enough. I'm running 2 syn 4's a cadence audio 1600 watt and a hifonics Brutus 2000 watt. You'd be good for 6-7 hours I'd bet. Wetsounds runs 6 in their demo boat I believe.

At $320/ea, I don't think I'll be doing that.
I have a sanger, not a G series, let's remember that LOL

I'm pretty sure on a 6v battery, the amp hours are only when wired in series so it takes a pair of batteries to get the Ah. I run 3 interstate 29s for a total of 345 Ah. And they're $110 a piece.

Assuming its adequate for amp hours of your current bank......what is the Ah of your current bank and whats the Ah going to be with 4 6V?

Here is a chart I made for comparison when deciding which route to go. I ended up with Exide GV135s and so far they are awesome. I have an Exile Xi1500.1, 800.4, and Harpoon.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/13/zuhypuha.jpg

I have no clue. The batteries came with the boat, I just went out and looked at them. 9 total. 1 interstate deep cranking battery - this is the starting battery.

And 8 gray MK power batteries that I have never heard of and they have nothing listed on them.

Basically what I am looking for is something that I can run hard for a day on the water, bring back to shore power, whether it be the dock, or a generator on the beach, and charge it back up overnight.

this is what they look like, but there are no numbers on the battery to distinguish http://www.batteriesasap.com/8g34.html

If I found the correct equation, and am computing this correctly - I would need a 2500ah bank

it is watts/volts so 5000/12=416 amps per hour

Then I take the 416 and x that by the hours I want of use, in this case Ill say 6.

6x416=2500 amp hours

EDIT: Granted that is using the wattage wetsounds lists for the SD2 and SD4 @ 14.4v so I assume that it is less, same goes for my sub amp

That equation isn't in the ball bark as there are a ton of missing and incorrect factors, some known and some unknown.
You failed to consider the amplifiers' efficiency. This varies amplifier to amplifier and according to the output load impedance for each amplifier.
The equation is based on a constant DC draw like a motor, yet music and thus audio equipment live in the AC realm related to current drain, which is just a fraction of the DC computation.
The level of play, at what % of capacity you consider an acceptable depletion level (I consider 12.0 volts/half battery reserves the normal and repetitive acceptable threshold), the type of music, the equalization settings, and the method in which the system is set-up and tuned (which can make a dramatic difference), are just a few of the variables.

When it comes to accuracy, nothing beats measuring the voltage drop in actual use.

2500 amp hours would be a lot of batteries! Like 10 8D's or 20+ 6 volts.

If the battery you posted is what you have right now you have 480 amp hours so I'd use that as a guide to attain what you want from your battery bank.

I've had 512 AH in my boat for the last 4 or 5 seasons and can get a couple days out of them or 8 hours of very loud play. The RMS of my amps totals 3800 watts.

Rode out last summer with the batteries that came in the boat. Upped the subs and now they really aren't cutting it.
My rms is around 7k watts, which using the calculators online if I'm doing it right brings me to around 600ah?
Does that mean I will get only 1hr of play out of my bank if I run a 600ah bank?
I'm looking into 4 Trojan J305G-AC.
Can I wire all 4 on bank1 of the perko, and keep a g27 or g31 on bank2 for starting?

No you will get more play time than that. Your not playing a constant tone all the time so you're hardly ever pulling anywhere close to 7K watts. You have to look at box rise, are you playing heavy bass lines all the time etc..

I have a Sundown SCV 4000 and Wet Sounds SD6 on 5 xs power xp3000's. I played for a good 6 hours between 1/2 volume and 3/4 volume an they still showed 12.9 volts.

what calculator are you using? I bet you are transposing the 7k watts AC RMS to 12V DC amps. This will skew the numbers for sure.

Where did you get your xp3000's? I've been thinking that route too but best I can find is $270/ea

Got them off a guy on Car audio classifieds. They were just installed and never used. Got them for a hell of deal. Cheapest new is around $270. Sometimes you can call xs power and they might have some blemished batteries for sale.

Can't decide if I should go the 6 6v route or 4 xp3000. 6v will be about $250 and get more ah out of them.
http://www.atbatt.com/trojan-t-105-6...rt-battery.asp

Love my xp3000's they recover very quickly on heavy bass note songs and perform awesome, but for more AH and $250 cheaper its almost a no brainer.

Went ahead and said **** it. Ordered 4 of the L16 trojan batteries at 435ah each. 1100 bucks

No room for ballast?? You've got permanent ballast if your running 9 batteries LOL

Plan on running 2 in each rear locker as they weigh 115lb each. Since I made this post I've upgraded to 1100lb bags so I'm stoked to gain some room in the lockers. These Batteries are 16" tall, 11" wide, 7" in depth.
They'll be here tomorrow and I'll get them in for this weekend. Will give me 870ah on fresh brand new Batteries.