Ecotech Battery Backup Life

AdamNC · Nov 2, 2019

I went to test my battery backup today only to find it’s dead after only 10 months. What good is that? I know that I can do one of 2 things. 1. Send in for warranty or 2. Drill the rivets and replace the battery from Amazon. I think the later would be cheaper due to the consumer having to pay shipping back to Ecotech. I’ve tested it 3 times since having it but only for about 5 mins each time. And I did already check the inline fuse.

How long did your battery last?

Saltycrew · Nov 2, 2019

Maybe I’ll try a ice cap battery pack instead

Ridgeway · Nov 2, 2019

I have a few here, they tend to have a useful life of about 18months or so and then the batteries need replacing.

I tend to think a 12v AGM leisure battery would be better and longer lasting.

Greg P · Nov 2, 2019

I vote replace on your own.
I run 2 x 18ah with a float charger. I'm at 7-1/2 years already on 1 battery and the second is just shy of 4 years. I take them in to my local battery outlet every year or 2 for load testing.
Funnily enough, my power went out today for a couple hours and my MP10s were showing a fully charged state so all is good.

Do you have a Battery World near you or something similar? Very reasonable prices

AdamNC · Nov 2, 2019

gregzz4 said:
Do you have a Battery World near you or something similar? Very reasonable prices

No but I'm probably going to order an Expert Power EXP12180

MentalNote · Nov 2, 2019

If you haven’t seen it, there is a detailed YouTube video on drilling out the rivets and replacing the existing one (here). I’ve bought the parts but haven’t done it.

Greg P · Nov 2, 2019

AdamNC said:
No but I'm probably going to order an Expert Power EXP12180

Good choice
I've never owned the Ecotech unit so can't comment on dimensions to fit your housing, but I like the battery size and price

ca1ore · Nov 2, 2019

This is a good reminder for me to check my pair .....

Greg P · Nov 2, 2019

gregzz4 said:
I take them in to my local battery outlet every year or 2 for load testing.

Just to expand on this a little;
Having a battery show a full charge of X volts does not tell you how strong it is.
This is why I mentioned load testing where you find out the battery's ability to hold a charge under load

Ridgeway · Nov 3, 2019

gregzz4 said:
Just to expand on this a little;
Having a battery show a full charge of X volts does not tell you how strong it is.
This is why I mentioned load testing where you find out the battery's ability to hold a charge under load

This is the main issue. I test mine every 12 months (it's on my maintenance schedule) and i see how long they can run the pump they are connected to. It shocking how quickly these batteries fall away from a good load charge.

Waters · Nov 3, 2019

Mine barely lasted 6 months........when i finally needed it, it didn't even work. I ripped it off the wall and dumped it.

TheOne · Nov 3, 2019

I use a small deep cycle battery. Power outage for 9 hours last weekend and it ran one mp40 at 80% no problem.

Plus it was $100 cheaper than the small alarm battery ecotech uses. And should last 3-4x as long. That battery is 2 years old and still going strong.

Ridgeway · Nov 3, 2019

TheOne said:
I use a small deep cycle battery. Power outage for 9 hours last weekend and it ran one mp40 at 80% no problem.

Plus it was $100 cheaper than the small alarm battery ecotech uses. And should last 3-4x as long. That battery is 2 years old and still going strong.

That is the way to go IMO, if you have the space then this will knock the spots off any of the small battery solutions out there.

Ridgeway · Nov 3, 2019

The other issue i've come across is that many people (me included) set the 12v (power out) speed value as low as possible so to extend the battery life in a power outage scenario. What has happened to me and others i know is that as the wetside becomes a little clogged up then when it switches to the 20% power it just stalls as there isn't enough power to drive it. I've know this happen to a few people. I now set mine at 50% to try to find a reasonable compromise between battery life and this issue. With a bigger though i'd simply have them set at 100%.

TheOne · Nov 3, 2019

It's actually not that big. I use it with a trolling motor and it lasts all day so no problem running a small mp40w at 80% all day. I run 4 mp40w on my 6' tank and only run one at 80% for power outages.

Plus I know all about the ecotech batteries. My son owns several power wheels and I've went thru my share of them, ha.

Ridgeway · Nov 3, 2019

How did you wire it ? just copy the Ecotech or something different ?

TheOne · Nov 3, 2019

I bought the ecotech battery backup cable and just cut the end that plugs into the ecotech backup battery and crimped small lawn mower battery clamps to it. The other end just plugs straight into the mp40w. Power shuts off and mp40w keeps running on battery backup. Probably should put an inline fuse on the power side as I have plenty of them just been too lazy to do it. Been running with this setup for two years now and no problems.

Bought the battery at academy.

GlassMunky · Nov 3, 2019

TheOne said:
It's actually not that big. I use it with a trolling motor and it lasts all day so no problem running a small mp40w at 80% all day. I run 4 mp40w on my 6' tank and only run one at 80% for power outages.

Plus I know all about the ecotech batteries. My son owns several power wheels and I've went thru my share of them, ha.

do you have to manually switch over the pumps to this battery during a power outage?

the biggest thing i liked about the ecotech one (when it worked) was that it would automatically switch to it in a power outage so even if i was at work when it happened the tank would be ok.

TheOne · Nov 3, 2019

GlassMunky said:
do you have to manually switch over the pumps to this battery during a power outage?

the biggest thing i liked about the ecotech one (when it worked) was that it would automatically switch to it in a power outage so even if i was at work when it happened the tank would be ok.

No, it automatically switches over to the battery when the power goes out. I had to travel about 6 months out of last year. I got really good at automating my tank to take care of itself, ha.

GlassMunky · Nov 3, 2019

TheOne said:
No, it automatically switches over to the battery when the power goes out. I had to travel about 6 months out of last year. I got really good at automating my tank to take care of itself, ha.

NICE! gonna have to implement this on the new build as when we moved to the new house we noticed that our ecotech batteries no longer work after about 2 years...