What battery?

[TireTracks]

I'm looking into getting a new battery, the one I have currently is just a plain Lead Acid battery. I would like something around $200 or so that has enough capacity to let me run a light in my canopy,or radio for a few hours+ or a small inverter when camping.

I've looked at Optima's and the like in the summit racing catolog, but i;ve read there are other cheaper alternatives that work just as good, and optima's suposidly arnt as good as they used to be.

What would you get for $200 or so, that has the most Amps to use, cranking power,ect? It's going in a 1985 dodge W250 with the 125amp alternator. I hope to do some over night camping in the mountains this summer, and i will probably be sleeping in the back of my truck, so i'm installing 12v outlets in the bed, a light in my canopy. SO i plan to do this once i start working in a few months.

 

[ldivinag]

i think the current battery of the day is the sears platinum line.

it's a rebadged oddesey, from what someone posted here...

the optima, has gotten bad quality control in the pat few years. i had one in the past six months, new, that gave me nothing but problems...

bought the sears platinum and so far so good...

 

[charlieaarons]

The Odyssey/Platinums are AGM batteries (starved electrolyte glass mat), total different than the Optima gel design.
Charging and especially overcharging causes bubbles of hydrogen to form in the electrolyte. In a gel battery they can't dissipate and this degrades the battery.
AGMs are "recombinant", somehow they can recombine H2 and O2 and don't outgas H2 hardly at all even with equalization which should be done only when needed.
I recently equalized my four 4D Lifeline AGMs after almost 4 years. They showed a loss of capacity as measured by voltage decrease with a given amount of amp-hrs discharged.
The process was successful.
I hope to get a round-the-world trip out of them.

Charlie

 

[Martyn]

The Odyssey/Platinums are AGM batteries (starved electrolyte glass mat), total different than the Optima gel design.
Charging and especially overcharging causes bubbles of hydrogen to form in the electrolyte. In a gel battery they can't dissipate and this degrades the battery.
AGMs are "recombinant", somehow they can recombine H2 and O2 and don't outgas H2 hardly at all even with equalization which should be done only when needed.
I recently equalized my four 4D Lifeline AGMs after almost 4 years. They showed a loss of capacity as measured by voltage decrease with a given amount of amp-hrs discharged.
The process was successful.
I hope to get a round-the-world trip out of them.

Charlie

Charlie

We rely on our smart chargers to do the equalization, but in reading about doing it manually there seems to be various methods of doing it.

One of the methods is:
"An equalizing charge for a 12 volt battery requires that it be charged with a voltage of at least 14.4 volts for a period of at least one hour once a month, or every 10 discharge cycles. An equalizing charge prevents battery stratification and reduces sulfation, the leading cause of battery failure." from http://www.progressivedyn.com/battery_basics.html

How did you equalize your batteries?

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I just boughts a Die Hard Platinum as well for the same reason. I bought the larger one which is a whopping 930 amps. Pretty excited to use it..

 

[charlieaarons]

I have smart charger: Xantrex Prosine 3.0. But equalization is manual. It charges at 13.3-14.4 volts depending on stage, floats at 13.3-13.4. A microswitch on the side of the charger (very hard to get to - I needed to use a mirror and a pice of welding rod with a 90 deg bend and sharpened at the tip) needed to be switched from "gel" to "flooded" to enable equalization.
Xantrex' manual says equalization shouldn't be done for AGMs. But Lifeline/Concorde says it is OK; I called Lifeline.
Lifeline recommended 15.5V for 8 hrs X 1 for me. But When I enabled equalization, I got 16.6-16.8 for ~ 45 min. I did it X 2 and my load test improved but wasn't quite what I wanted so I did once more. With batteries warmed to ~22C.
My load test then was good. With 83.6% charge at 120 hr discharge rate (~7A), voltage was 12.64. Lifeline's specs for this state is ~12.62, so I am happy.
This is the first time I have done this, the camper was assembled spring of 2006.
Lifeline recommends equalization only when there is evidence of at least 20% capacity loss. The best way I was able to ascertain this is voltage at a certain state of discharge by counting amps with my Xantrex battery monitor, discharge being done at a fairly constant rate, preferably either at 120 hr rate or 20 hr rate, to match their tables:
http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/manual.pdf , p.28

Charlie