New battery

[newman]

This may not be the best place but.. I am using a Marine DeepCycle Battery to run a stereo and lights on my Golf Cart. It is about dead. I am wondering the best battery to get. I use teh stereo and lights pretty hard. But I recharge every night, I have a shumacer(sp?) Automatic Battery Charger. I am willing to pay any price. Are gel cells good? I have a Die Hard now. Its about 5 years old. I want tough battery that can give me lots of power all day long. Please help! Thanks,

 

[mattttt25]

Re: New battery

i hear the gels are great, but cost much more. you'll get plenty of suggestions from the others, but i think 5 years on a standard battery is pretty good.

 

[kalan2000]

Re: New battery

Check out the specs on the Absorbed Gas Mat (AGM) batteries. Twice the price of quality lead acid deep cycles, but supposedly 3 times the life. For example, a Dual Pro Lightning AGM runs $239. A Trojan SCS225 lead-acid runs $105. Another option is the EverStart Maxx-29 lead-acid that runs about $65. <br /><br />The two lead-acids have specs of about 850 MCA, 675 CCA, 200 mins RC, 120 amp-hrs. The AGM has 1500 MCA, 1200 CCA, 200 min RC. Other advantages of the AGM are no maintenance and smaller size. <br /><br />Trying to decide myself which option is best.

 

[stauter99]

Re: New battery

I am seriously looking at the class 31 Stowaway batteries by Exide. Are they good? I want a good battery with a high RC.THANKS!

 

[ThomWV]

Re: New battery

Exide batterys are about as low as you can go quality wise.<br /><br />Don't pay any attention at all to the Cold Cranking Amps, or any other version of cranking amps for your application. What you care about is that Reserve Capacity, or if you pick up a deep cycle it will be expressed as the simple capacity in Amp Hours. Go as high as possible. That Wally World battery that was mentioned (the sixty dollar one) has a reserve capacity of 205 hours if I remember correctly. The gel cell and absorbed glass matt are just fine if you need to mount the battery upside down, but other than that for your application a lead acid battery is just fine. There is certainly no reason at all to spend a couple of hundred bucks on a battery when for considerably less than a $100 you can get one that will take care of your needs with ease.<br /><br />Thom

 

[stauter99]

Re: New battery

I just want to go with a regular lead acid, cause gel cells that I see dont have a real high RC. I want one with around a 200 RC. I thought Exide was pretty good, guess not. What brand lead acid would yall reccomend, for quality and high RC. I really appreciate it!!!

 

[18rabbit]

Re: New battery

Cold cranking amps and marine cranking amps are a specification for the battery’s ability to provide amperage appropriate for turning over an engine. CCA is the max amps the battery can dump at 0-degF and is intended for use with machines on land. The MCA is the max amps the battery can dump at 32-degF and intended for use with boats…since you are not likely to start a boat if the water is frozen. The values differ because the colder a battery is, the fewer amps it can dump. They are important specs for matching a battery’s starting ability to an engine’s cranking demand.<br /><br />The other two spec that are important on a deep cycle are the A/Hr rating and the 20-hr/amp rate. The A/Hr value is the capacity of the battery if totally depleted over a 20-hr period. Typically, it is recommended not to exceed 50% of this value. A 200 A/Hr battery will yield 100 amps over a 20-hr period without excessive damage to the cells. Some batteries can go down to about 80% of their A/Hr value.<br /><br />The 20-hr rate is the max amps available over a given time span. For purposes of comparison, the 20-hr time span is used as a standard. The actual values are typically expressed in a matrix. The faster amps are drawn, the less the battery is willing to give up, thus the need for the matrix. You can get an idea of the battery’s performance based on the load you apply to it.<br /><br />One of my favorite batteries is the Surrette/Rolls 6v CH 375, a 350 A/Hr battery with a footprint similar to an L16 golf cart battery. Here are some extracts from the 20-hr rate matrix:<br /><br />100-hrs 4.4 a/hr 438 amps total<br />50-hrs 8 a/hr 399 amps total<br />20-hrs 18 a/hr 350 amps total<br />10-hrs 30 a/hr 301 amps total<br />5-hrs 51 a/hr 256 amps total<br />2-hrs 95 a/hr 189 amps total<br />1-hr 144 a/hr 144 amps total<br /><br />With a 4.4-amp load, you can take 350 amps (80%) out of the battery over a 100-hr period without causing excessive damage to a 350 A/Hr battery. The Surrette batteries are used on sailboats doing trans-pacific crossings with 10 or 12 years use and still going strong.<br /><br />If you want a quality deep cycle battery, it’s hard to beat the Surrette (Rolls in America). Yes...they have 12v bats, too. <br /><br /> http://www.surrette.com/