Kinetik battery yes or no?

Good or bad battery. Looking at the HC2400 just for my stereo system.

Yes I searched and I did find treads,but they are so unclear if they are good batteries or not. I found it for a good price. Under $270 out the door.

Also if my system is pushing 2400 watts rms with kicker amps and this kinetik amp was not recharged by my alternator, but was only charged while sitting on my dock at the end of every use. How long would the stereo be able to play at a med to high volume while riding? Kinetik website really doesn't answer that it just recommends the battery to the wattage used.

AH128 2600 amp 1700 ca

Stereo guys let me know ASAP cause I need to order the battery today to get it delivered on time for my next outing. Thanks.

There's too many variables to determine play time.

Kinetics are good batteries from what I heard, but overpriced IMO. I have Trojan 6v's wired in a series to make it 12v. You could get 2 Trojan T105's 6v's for less than the Kinetic HC2400 and have 100 more amp hours.

Benjamin, Can you give me an example to how may hours you can play your system before a recharge. Did you upgrade your alternator so you can recharge your battery bank or do you also just recharge your system at the end of your day? It seems alot of people do this.

I've had really good luck with www.4xspower.com batteries. I have two D3100's running my wetsounds system. No complaints here. I think they are similar to Kinetic brand batteries.

Well, I don't have the T105 Trojans (225ah total), I have the J305's (315ah total), however, I'm pushing more watts. I have an 2400.1 watt class D amp putting everything it has to the sub @ 1ohm and a 800.4 class A/B amp running a full load at 2ohm. My batteries are not connected to the alternator. I've only been out with this stereo once. I played the stereo for a good 3-4 hours at high volume with a few breaks in between and it was still going strong when we left the lake.

I recharge them at the end of the day. If I'm not on the water or towing the boat to the lake the batteries are on the Prosport 20 Gen 2 charger.

fullspeed,
Sounds like a good value to me for an AGM of that capacity.
Depending on your class and efficiency of your amplifiers, how efficient the system is by design and tuning, you might get anywhere from one hour at -0 dB and perhaps all day at -10 dB. As stated previously there are too many variables to make this predictable. However, it is not particularly healthy to run your audio electronics at lower voltages.
128 amp/hours is not so large that you wouldn't keep it on the alternator while running around. A voltage sensing solenoid can serve to protect your alternator and then when you are out of battery reserves then you are simply done for the day stereo wise.
You definitely won't go all day on 128 A/Hs with a 2400 watt stereo played hard. The bigger concern as I see it is that you will be cycling the battery much deeper without the alternator service and you will see a rapid decline in this battery performance as the season passes. Deep cycle batteries are made to deplete but inordinately deep cycles are not tolerated nearly as well as a far higher quantity of shallower cycles.
People who run independent battery banks with that much current draw (for example pontoons without outboards, boats with stators, fishing boats with trolling motors) typically have much larger battery reserves so they don't cycle them as deeply which promotes longevity.
In your scheme I would double that capacity and use a 30 amp shore charger minimum.

David
Earmark Marine

this is second boat ive had Kinetiks in - no complaints. It all depends on what you buy them for. Custom Sounds here in Austin wants like $450-$500 for a 2400 HC. I would never pay that kind of money for this battery. But for around $250-270 its not too bad considering its an AGM. I just upgraded from three 1800's to four 1800's + two 2400's. Just shy of 600aH.

Forgot to mention that my old boat had around 2700 watts with a single 2400 HC for stereo. I got around 6-7hrs of play time pretty much on full tilt. However i would NOT recommend doing that as i lterally would kill it everytime. I ended up having to replace the battery after a season. I would put two 2000 hc's in since you wont be running an alternator to the stereo bank. That will give 204aH. But in the end it really depends on how much you play stereo.

That is a smoken deal at 270. Go for it. @ full price I would rather go with a FullRiver AGM, similar Ah ratings but for much less money.

I am currently running Kinetik by the way. I have 4 - 2400s and with no motor running I can pull about 5 hours play time at about 2/3 to 3/4 volume. If I run it wide open then time is down around 3.5 to 4 hours. I'm running 2 ARC SE2300s and 1 SE4200. about 3400 watts RMS.

Originally Posted by johnny_jr

I am currently running Kinetik by the way. I have 4 - 2400s and with no motor running I can pull about 5 hours play time at about 2/3 to 3/4 volume. If I run it wide open then time is down around 3.5 to 4 hours. I'm running 2 ARC SE2300s and 1 SE4200. about 3400 watts RMS.

Im surprised your getting such short run times. those must Arc's draw a ton of juice?

David, I bought the HC2400 and was wondering which voltage sensing solenoid would you recommend. Is there a brand that you seem to like over another. Oh yeah and a battery charger. I guess I better upgrade that as well. I forgot the charger has to be charging at a higher voltage due to it being a AGM Battery.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Originally Posted by fullspeed

David, I bought the HC2400 and was wondering which voltage sensing solenoid would you recommend. Is there a brand that you seem to like over another. Oh yeah and a battery charger. I guess I better upgrade that as well. I forgot the charger has to be charging at a higher voltage due to it being a AGM Battery.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Be careful lumping all AGM batteries into the higher voltage category. I believe you are correct with the Kinetics but not all should be charged at a higer voltage. In addition AGM batteries are much more prone to be damaged due to overcharging then wet cell batteries. Because of the variations across brands I wouldn't necessarily automatically put the charger on the AGM setting. Maybe speak with the charger manufacturer or the battery manufacturer about the best charger and setting.

Like others have said there is a lot of variation in play time depending on the beginning state of charge of the battery, condition of battery, efficiency of amps, how you listen to your music, etc... If you have A/B class amps I wouldn't be surprised if you only got a couple of hours of play time at full tilt.

Originally Posted by polarbill

Be careful lumping all AGM batteries into the higher voltage category. I believe you are correct with the Kinetics but not all should be charged at a higer voltage. In addition AGM batteries are much more prone to be damaged due to overcharging then wet cell batteries. Because of the variations across brands I wouldn't necessarily automatically put the charger on the AGM setting. Maybe speak with the charger manufacturer or the battery manufacturer about the best charger and setting.

Like others have said there is a lot of variation in play time depending on the beginning state of charge of the battery, condition of battery, efficiency of amps, how you listen to your music, etc... If you have A/B class amps I wouldn't be surprised if you only got a couple of hours of play time at full tilt.

Good advice there. When I had kinetiks in my last boat, I carefully looked at the specs for charging on Kinetik's website and noticed that most of the chargers on the market do not charge the batteries at the right voltages, even with the setting on AGM. Only the Xantrex I eventually bought did fit the bill. I am unsure if overcharging or undercharging by .2V is going to make a difference, but it seems wise to make sure the charger you buy fits the posted specs.

About the VSR. I think you see my old thread on this page now about a problem with the MC VSR. It opens at 12.7 volts and combines the batteries. The kinetiks rest at 13.0 or so. That means that the VSR kept the batteries combined all the time, unless they dropped to 12.6 volts or so. But by that time, they are already 50% discharged, not a good combination. Especially considering that the VSR itself draws power. That would draw my batteries down every time to 12.6 volts, leaving them half dead, which is one of the worst things for a battery. So I ended up installing a switch on the VSR.

To answer your question more directly about the VSR, I would get one that only combines when the sensed voltage is greater than 13.2 volts or so....not sure they make one, but that is what I would be looking for.

The Sure power one disconnects at 12.6 or 12.7 but doesn't reconnect till 13.2. To me it would still have the same problem of disconnecting too late when your batteries are already 3 or 4 tenths low.

It wouldn't be my first way of doing it but you could just use a Cole Hersee Starter Relay/solenoid hooked to a toggle/rocker switch on the dash and you could connect and disconnect manually. You could also connect your ignition switch to the relay so it automatically connects when your ign. switch is on. The problem with that is that the batteries would combine for starting which you don't want to have happen if your stereo bank is dead. It also wouldn't hep protect the alternator because the batteries would be combined all the time the boat is running.

I wonder if Sure Power can adjust there setting at all? Cole Hersee would probably make a custom voltage set VSR but someone would probably have to buy 100-200 of them.

Pertaining to VCRs, I think their behaviors are generally misunderstood. A BEP scheme is really different from a Blue Sea scheme. And ACR/VSRs behave differently when used with audio systems with different current demands and different battery reserves. On larger systems you can easily exceed the functional limitations of any ACR/VSR. Also, I don't want an ACR/VSR to behave the same on a towboat with a 100 amp alternator as a jetboat with dual 14 amp stators. And when things don't go according to expectations I generally see the cause misdiagnosed.
We take a little different approach. I want to know how the boat is used, how the audio system is used, the size of the battery reserves, the stereo system current draw, the alternator size, whether or not shore AC power is available, whether or not the factory HU is dependent on a helm touchscreen that must remain on the house bank and a few other qualifiers before I recommend the specific combiner/separator and switching package.
I am far more interested when the voltage sensing solenoid combines versus a small difference in when it separates.
I can tell you that highly efficient amplifiers make this entire process much easier versus highly inefficient amplifiers. Keep this in mind. A Class AB amplifier may consume 2000 watts of supply in order to deliver 1000 watts of audio power. 1000 watts is wasted in generating heat. A Class D amplifier may consume 1250 watts of supply in order to deliver the same 1000 watts of audio power. Only 250 watts is burned into heat in the process. Thats 400 percent more current wasted as heat to produce the same output power. Not exactly a minor difference. This compounds everything related to managing the boat's charging system.
So there are a few variables as you can see. I'm not making it more complex than it is. I've had those people with issues frequently emailing me over the last few seasons as systems seemed to have gotten much larger and complex.

David
Earmark Marine

As a major advocate for ACR/VSRs, I can appreciate the convenience of an automatic voltage sensing solenoid and the fact that it can protect an alternator from an excessive and potentially harmful load. There are installers all across the nation that avoid these things like the plague because on really big systems they can separate and NEVER combine. So they just keep it simple with a dual battery switch only and focus on larger alternator upgrades.

David
Earmark Marine

Talltigeguy which model Xantrex charger did you end up buying. I looked at those online and those are not cheap. I found a ProMariner Sport 20 that I was thinking about. 2 bank charger for $169.00. I thought would work, but you are right they are not to the exact specs.

Wish I would of thought of everything before I purchased the battery. I already have a tracking number for it and it is on the way.

Is there a portable charger that does the job for now? The family lake house is at Lake Tulloch so AC power is 50 feet way from my boat parking space on our dock. Then later I could instal a onboard charger along with another HC2400 possibly for longer trips to other lakes. Just thinking out loud.

David,
As far as the ACR/VSR go. If I have a pergo switch. Setting #1 / #2 and all. Can't I just charge the kinetik battery Setting #2 only and it wouldn't effect battery (starter) #1 right. Wouldn't do the same if I ran the boat with out the stereo on for setting #2 if I needed to charge the Kinetic battery? Or does a Pergo switch not work that way. Confussed now. I know with the new Kinetic battery the All setting is not an option. Think that would be too much stress on the alternator right.

What about this charger for the HC2400 portable. It is made by Kinetik any one use one or have one.

http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...ice_Comparison

Amazon is where I bought the Kinetik HC2400

Free shipping and no tax. $267.99.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...pf_rd_i=507846

I ordered the kinetik battery mid yesterday and I am getting it today. It is coming from Sacramento. Free shipping and no tax.

Again any one use or have one of these portable chargers. Kinetik.

http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...ice_Comparison