My boat came from factory with three odd sized batteries. The batteries are Exide ER350 model and apparently they fall under the Group D26 category. They are each 80Ah "dual purpose" batteries with 2 in parallel for the house bank and 1 for the starter.
They are arranged in a plywood framed battery box as shown in the attached picture. My problem is that these batteries are an odd size. Each one is 10.24" long x 6.89" wide x 8.88" high. As you can see in the picture there is no room whatsoever to go any larger here without doing carpentry work or relocating one of the batteries completely.
The boat is kept on a mooring and I throw on a 50w solar panel (and controller) on the house bank to keep it topped off for weekend. The starter battery is maintained by the alternator only. My sailing is mostly day sailing with some weekend cruising so I'm not looking to live off these batteries. I keep the fridge off so the use is mostly electronics and LED lighting.
At this point I have no real need to redesign the whole system at this time. My concern is that should my batteries need to be replaced, I will not be able to source these european sized batteries here and I can't find a flooded or AGM battery here that would fit in the same space!
I am wondering if anyone has any ideas of how I could get at roughly the same amount of power in the same size volume of space!
They are arranged in a plywood framed battery box as shown in the attached picture. My problem is that these batteries are an odd size. Each one is 10.24" long x 6.89" wide x 8.88" high. As you can see in the picture there is no room whatsoever to go any larger here without doing carpentry work or relocating one of the batteries completely.
The boat is kept on a mooring and I throw on a 50w solar panel (and controller) on the house bank to keep it topped off for weekend. The starter battery is maintained by the alternator only. My sailing is mostly day sailing with some weekend cruising so I'm not looking to live off these batteries. I keep the fridge off so the use is mostly electronics and LED lighting.
At this point I have no real need to redesign the whole system at this time. My concern is that should my batteries need to be replaced, I will not be able to source these european sized batteries here and I can't find a flooded or AGM battery here that would fit in the same space!
I am wondering if anyone has any ideas of how I could get at roughly the same amount of power in the same size volume of space!