Laying batteries on their sides

[Night Train]

I am watching these batteries and was wondering if they could be laid on their sides?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MARATHON-12VOLT-100-AMP-DEEP-CYCLE-GEL-LEISURE-BATTERY_W0QQitemZ220537835209QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Gadgets?hash=item3359144ec9
I asked the seller but all he could/would say was that they were sealed but could be sure if they would be ok.

I want to have a stack 4 high on their sides for a mini tractor I am building. If not then I will need to find other (cheap) batteries to fill the same sort of space.

Thanks.

[Peter Eggleston]

Why can't you stand two side by side and then two on top? They would take up the same space.
Peter

[Night Train]

Too high in that configuration.

I am currently working on a 2x2 long thin layout but it makes my project quite long.

I could use smaller batteries for the mini-tractor project but I am also thinking of using the same batteries and golf buggy motor to get my MR2 running and road legal before getting a bigger motor and lithiums.

This is what I am working on:



Started off as the transaxle off a Ransomes verge cutter.

[GregsGarage]

Those should be o.k. on their sides, most gel-cell and AGM style batteries can be mounted any way except upside-down. If you can track down the manufactures website it may have some info or maybe a tech support number if you want to confirm.

[bluedalmatian]

can ThunderSky cells be laid on their side?

[timpootle]

Welcome bluedalmatian! That's a tough question for your first post.

I think the answer is "it depends who you ask". There are several different types of cell supplied by ThunderSky. I have certainly seen some people saying "NO!", don't install anything but vertical under any circumstances.

I would go to the yahoo! group for more opinion on using ThunderSky. Read the whole of that thread, and follow the links to older threads on the same subject.

Peter Perkins may be along soon with his own ideas. I think he had them laid flat in his solarvan.

HiPower, who made the cells I bought, say you CAN mount their cells ANY direction except terminal-down. We will see with time whether they were right.

[bluedalmatian]

where's the best place to go for HiPower cells?

[GregsGarage]

I would go to the yahoo! group for more opinion on using ThunderSky. Read the whole of that thread, and follow the links to older threads on the same subject.

Peter Perkins may be along soon with his own ideas. I think he had them laid flat in his solarvan.

Jukka in the thread mentioned above had done extensive testing on this issue. He found that the LCP cells (including the version Peter was using) where fine on their sides. The LMP cells suffered corrosion in weeks or months as I recall and the LFP suffered corrosion after a year on their sides. The corrosion was internal in the cell. This was several years ago, so it is possible that this problem has been addressed. His results are somewhere in the posts, but unfortunately Yahoo's search function is broken and doesn't seem able to return results more than 2 years old!

Recently people have reported no problems with LFP cells on their side after 2 years, so no definitive answer seems to exist. If you want to play it safe get some smaller cells and parallel them so that you can mount them vertically. This is the approach I have taken. I am using 3x 40ah cells in parallel and mounted terminals up. Or you could get pouch cells or cylindrical cells that can be mounted in any position.