Tubular Battery / Semi Tubular.. Whats the difference???

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HailStonE

HailStonE

Forerunner
I am in the market for a replacement for my AMARON SHIELD 150 Ah battery. It has now refused to provide any back up owning to its age of 3 years 4 months.

Now I am noticing two types of batteries viz, tubular & semi-tubular. What is the difference? Most tubular I saw were those Tall Tubular batteries like Exide IT500 (very expensive). Some companies do have tubular batteries in half height. They look like regular batteries but are also called Tubular... How are those.

My power situation is not bleak. Power outages last ~20-30 mins but the no. of times this happens is 3-4 times a day. In Monsoon season when its windy then there is deliberate power cut for 1-2 hrs. Otherwise in the name of maintenance 3-4 times a year there is a long power outage of 6-8 hrs...

Which battery should I get. :confused:
 
Since your usage is low, you can even go for regular Exide battery, I am using EXide inverter plus 150 ah since 2009 , now 5+ years, still gives good backup , I dont get frequent power cuts, no cuts in winter & monsoon, about 10 mins a day in summers .
 
That's quite nice. How often do you top up..Yours is a Semi-Tubular battery. Even My AMARON SHIELD is a Semi Tubular but it died after three years... Now AMARON has stopped making it instead they have released AMARON Current..

Can you let me know the model no. of the battery & price you paid at that time..
 
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Exide Inva tubular IT500.
Im using one since 22 april 2004. Still gives ~7hours of backup. Used heavily for last 10years (6-8 hours of power outage each day)
 
HailStonE said:
That's quite nice. How often do you top up..Yours is a Semi-Tubular battery. Even My AMARON SHIELD is a Semi Tubular but it died after three years... Now AMARON has stopped making it instead they have released AMARON Current..

Can you let me know the model no. of the battery & price you paid at that time..
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About once 6 months , even then its not needed but i just still top up[DOUBLEPOST=1399681986][/DOUBLEPOST]http://upsinverter.sulekha.com/battery/exide-in1500-plus-150ah-battery_product-price , i paid about 10k in 2009
 
hgps said:
Exide Inva tubular IT500.
Im using one since 22 april 2004. Still gives ~7hours of backup. Used heavily for last 10years (6-8 hours of power outage each day)
Click to expand...

IT500 would be quite expensive & I do not have such long power outages which warrants a tall tubular battery.......

Arjun said:
About once 6 months , even then its not needed but i just still top up[DOUBLEPOST=1399681986][/DOUBLEPOST]http://upsinverter.sulekha.com/battery/exide-in1500-plus-150ah-battery_product-price , i paid about 10k in 2009
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Looks convincing... Also I am comparing it to Luminous ILT1800 & Exide Inva Red+ 500+ along with BASE Tubuler which also seems to be semi-tubular ones like Invertor Plus....
 
I came across Luminous LT500, A somewhat mini tubular by the looks of it. Height is much shorter unlike the Exide IT500 mentioned above but larger than those flat tubular/ semi tubular... Price is similar to Luminous ILT180 I had short-listed.. Same warranty & Ah Rating as well but in tall tubular format standing at just 362mm height.. Exide one is bigger in size.

How is the performance of this battery, any users here..
 
Luminous Tubular battery are also good .Just check which weighs more ,heavier means more lead in battery which means it will last longer.
 
have Luminous Tall Tubular batteries.. the backup is excellent and usage is heavy. sometimes need to even use laser printer.
 
adder said:
Luminous Tubular battery are also good .Just check which weighs more ,heavier means more lead in battery which means it will last longer.
Click to expand...

They have 2 models of 150Ah.. LT500 seems to be smaller one (Tall Tubular) & then there is ILTT18048 (regular size tall)... former is 28kg & later is 33kg dry weight. Huge price difference between them ... ~4-5k...

max_demon said:
have Luminous Tall Tubular batteries.. the backup is excellent and usage is heavy. sometimes need to even use laser printer.
Click to expand...

Which model do you have & how long have you been using them...
 
Most tall tubular batteries like the ones from exide give 4 to 5 year proper warranty(not pro rata).And exide says that they can last as high as 6 to 10 years or 1200 Ch/Dis cycles.
Now 5kg difference in dry weight of the ILTT is huge it means there is very thick lead plates so it should last around the same ball park as that of exide batteries like IT500
 
HailStonE said:
They have 2 models of 150Ah.. LT500 seems to be smaller one (Tall Tubular) & then there is ILTT18048 (regular size tall)... former is 28kg & later is 33kg dry weight. Huge price difference between them ... ~4-5k...



Which model do you have & how long have you been using them...
Click to expand...

I'm having LT500 using since last 2 years
 
How often do you top it up... What's the usage pattern, No. of power outages in a day & for how long.

Also I want to know something specific.. The height of the battery is 362mm... Now does this include the float level as well or just the body of the battery...

I have an old trolley (Microtek) & Max height available to me is just 372mm...
 
Just topped it a week back.. there is a power outage for 8 hrs on Wednesdays. apart from that if there is any problem due to some disturbance like rain/storm then also the battery is useful. I'm having two of these batteries and at one occassion it served for >24 hours. (TV,STB, fans, lights, 2 Desktops.. etc)
362mm includes the float levels too but i think there should be some comfortable space left.
 
Are you sure it includes the float level.. If it is then it would give me 10mm of play... I generally remove the top cover to refill so no need for additional space at my end but I just want to be sure that 362mm includes the float level as well...
 
I checked the local market &its indeed ~372mm... I am getting LT500 for Rs 10400/- (-3000 for old battery)..

So effective its coming for Rs. 7400/- But there is one slight problem. The battery is manufactured in July 2013 even though its box packed.....
 
Got myself a new LUMINOUS LT500 Tall Tubular Battery for Rs. 6800/- :cool:

First dealer was not able to get me a newly manufactured battery & was adamant on the price + fixed buyback amount of 3k only... He tried very hard to convince me that there is no problem in battery kept in storage for such a long time... Apparantly he had never ever heard of SULPHATION & even HADI... Come to think of it I had bought my Microktek inverter from this guy in 2007 & after all this years he is still hopelessly ill-informed about such things.. can't blame him though..


I looked around & found another dealer who offered the battery for Rs. 10300/- minus scrap value of old battery @ Rs. 80/- per Kg.
The battery was manufactured in Apr 2014 so it was an added bonus.. ;)

Gave me Rs. 3500/- as buyback discount (after weighing in my old battery 43.5kg AMARON SHIELD 160Ah) & I paid Rs. 6800/- for a brand new packed Tall Tubular Battery, granted its not a regular size tall tubular battery but slightly smaller than those regular tall batteries. Though I only need it for multiple outrages lasting only 15-20 mins & very few longer power outages (6-7 times a year)..... It fitted perfectly in my regular flat plate battery trolley from Microtek in which it would have been impossible to install the regular tall tubular battery.....

Thanks to #max_demon who helped me in making my decision by providing me with the approx battery height measurement & the battery float levels are actually ~5mm higher than the space available to me but the battery is placed in such a way that they are under the groove space of the top inverter tray.. ..:joyful:


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In the course of looking for the battery I was adamantly suggested other batteries by numerous dealers but what was more annoying was the way they tried to dupe me by misquoting price of the new battery along with ridiculous offers for buyback price.. One dealer offered me just 20-25 bucks per kg explaining to me that I've a black colour battery & not a white colour hence buyback price would be lower otherwise it would be 50 bucks for white batteries... :wacky:

Others tried to push me old stored batteries blaming it on the company that they send only old batteries. They plainly refuse to help me get a newly manufactured battery from the company... One dealer even told me that Apr-May 2014 manufactured batteries would be available only by Diwali... :rolleyes:

Best experience was the way company area sales rep handled the request by giving me the distributor's no. & the distributor was offering me the same battery for 9k nett including buyback for my old battery. On mentioning this to the sales rep he was adamant that I was getting an unbelievable price... :facepalm:


In the end looking around for a week, numerous phone calls to various dealers helped me get the best deal & a newly manufactured sealed packed battery..

I just hope the battery works like it should without giving me much trouble.. Thanks to other members for their valuable suggestions.. :)
 
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