Toyama Hybrid Batteries

[BlueSovereign]

I'm in New Zealand, and need to replace my house bank of 4 R220s (6V wet cells, 220Ah) to a larger house bank of 6 batteries.
What has been recommended is Toyama Hybrid Gel batteries (6V225Ah). They are described as "essentially an AGM lead acid battery with a gelled electrolyte."
Both the highly regarded NZ distributor and a well known marine electrician who have been installing them for 3 or more years swear by them. This is the same supplier who won't even recommend a new MasterVolt charger (they sell all the other models) until they personally try it out so they can endorse its use.

No one seems to know anything about these "Hybrids". Can anyone advise or find out something? If they've been selling them here for more than 3 years, someone in the cruising community must be familar with them!
Thanks in advance.
William

[Pblais]

From the information I was able to find they seem like decent AGM / Gel batteries. It would be important to adjust your charging profile to match these characteristics. Simply replacing flood batteries with these and making no adjustment would not be wise. If you can't adjust your regulator to match the desired profile I would NOT suggest you switch. Hopefully your dealer can help you assess the ability to make such a change.

[anathema]

I know this is a year old or so, but I've never heard of these and am curious.

Wouldn't the electrolyte being "gelled" be a disadvantage to an AGM? It sounds like it would be mostly just like a gel-cell battery. The problem with those is if you overcharge them, even a little, bubbles form in the gel and they don't come back, and this capacity is lost forever.

AGMs already have the advantages of gel (temp ranges, non spillable even if broken, etc) without the disadvantages, and can handle a fantastic amount of overcharge etc without suffering too much, so why would these be a good thing?

[bill good]

The brand I put in as replacements to wet were the same specs & are very happy with the standard alternators. ( 55A on each starting system). The house battery is solar plus a mastervolt 20+20A charger from a 1kv Honda if needed & shore power. Overflow from the house system (Gel) once float of 13.8v is reached is feed back to keep the "hybrids" at 13.8 v. The specs for this type of battery indicate they will be happy with the 14.1v from the standard alternator. However check the full specs of the batteries yourself. I am hoping for 5yrs + from this type of battery!!
Regards Bill Goodward

[Kiwikat]

It's been several years since this thread was first started. Maybe someone now has some more experience with these batteries. We are about to change our dying battery bank and any info would be gratefully accepted.

We do have the ability to regulate the maximum voltage when charging so that would not be an issue to us.

Thanks
Lisa