I just had a nice conversation with one of the staff at BatterySpec.com, which is where I bought my Tempest TR22-12 sealed-lead acid (SLA) battery. I had inquired about a warranty exchange. They denied it but they gave me a really good reason why -- which is why I'm giving them two thumbs up.
The reason my TR22-12 died on my Piaggio is because I had it in a 2 serial 2 parallel configuration with slightly lower capacity Rhino batteries. I had them configured as a bank of Rhinos and a bank of Tempests. The internal resistance of the Tempests is lower than the Rhinos, so the Tempests were discharging faster and this is why one of them failed.
If anything, I should have done a mixed bank of Rhino-Tempest paired with another Rhino-Tempest. This would have protected the Tempests. But in general, mixing different capacity batteries is a big no-no -- which is why my warranty claim was denied.
In any case, my TR35-12 should be good for its purpose so we'll see where to go from there!
All in all, I'm very happy with BatterySpec and glad that they took the trouble to call me to tell me why my warranty claim was denied and why I shouldn't be doing what I had been doing.
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