Battery advice needed

[ert01]

Interesting... Let me know what Optima says.

I'd be enticed to go that route because then the house system and starting system would all use identical batteries which should ensure better charging and longer life than a mixed cell system (if I'm not mistaken).

I would almost go with a 4 battery system in that scenario. 2 house, 2 starting.

[E350]

Optima went with four:

https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...c2&oe=56430CED

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16621&hilit=SEMA

But the guy who already knows the answer, but is probably sworn not to tell, is electronics wizard mgmetalworks who apparently did the tow mirrors on Optima's SEMA van.

[BajaSportsmobile]

I bought a Yellow Top Optima in March of 2004 for my only House Battery in a 28 foot Class A Itasca. That battery was used in the Class A for a few years which sat mostly down in San Felipe with no method of charging except when the engine was being run.

Sometime in 2007 I moved the battery to my '90 Chevy Blazer as the only battery. I drove the Blazer often but it was not my primary vehicle and sat unused for weeks at a time.

The battery sat on the shelf most of 2009 and in 2010 I installed it in our '96 Jeep Cherokee where it is still in service today.

Until we moved the Jeep down here to Cabo, it was only used occasionally, mostly on long trips in Baja but with the occasional trip to the store. Sometimes it sat for months and would require a jump start.

Here in Baja for almost a year it gets driven almost daily. It just sat in airport parking for 4+ weeks in blazing heat and when we returned last Wednesday I was concerned it was going to be dead - no we never disconnect it. The radio was stolen out of it two years ago, so there is no slow drain there.

Anyway, it fired right up at the airport in 100 degrees...


We have been using Optima Yellow Top Batteries in Prerunners and Race Trucks for years as the only battery for starting and running.

[daveb]

I've had mixed results with Optima batteries. Overall they've been pretty good. On my bass boat I lost a red top after a couple of years but the yellow top's used on my trolling motor have hung in there. I also lost a blue top for no reason at all. I've brought back a yellow top from the dead using the proper procedure and it lasted in my pickup for another two years as a starting battery. I don't know how well it would have perform in a deep cycle mode after it went flat. The blue top that died would not come back no matter what I did and was never abused. I kept it fully charged and was only used as a power supply.

I still think Odyssey batteries are a much better starting battery...just expensive. For the price, Optima's seem to be a pretty good deal if you can get a good warranty on them. Got the last two at Costco and they used to take them back with no questions but that was several years ago. Can't say how well they cycle but a trolling motor is fairly rough on batteries and they did a good job. I only used my bass boat about 100 times a year back then.

[E350]

OPTIMA

Yellow Top D31A or Yellow Top D31T (personally I am not interested in this "Thin" top post model) or Blue Top D31M - Internally all supposedly the same. All have the same specs:

Cold Cranking Amps = 900
Amp Hours = 75 Ah rating C/20
Cycles = 350 at a 100 minute reserve capacity
See attached pdf spec sheets including pages following warranty spec sheet.

All cost about $220 each with free shipping on Amazon.

BajaSportsmobile may be on to something (as usual) with the Yellow Tops, see warranty info below:

Yellow Tops have a 36 Month free replacement warranty.
Blue Tops have a 24 Month free replacement warranty.
EDIT: While the foregoing is true as to the other Yellow Tops, the D31A and D31T Yellow Tops have the same 24 month warranty as the Blue Top D31M.
Additionally in "SERIES STRING APPLICATIONS WITH APPROVED BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM" (i.e., increasng voltage but keeping Ah the same) the warranties for both Yellow and Blue are reduced to 12 months and only to 1 month if the series application does use an "approved battery management system."
But we wouldn't use a "series string application" on the starting side most of us wouldn't use a series string application on the house-side. To keep the output at 12v and only to increase Amp hours, we would use a parallel string application. So would that bump the warranty back up to 24 months for the Yellow Top D31A and D31T and Blue Top D31M?
See attached warranty sheet pdf.

Rumor is Yellow Tops are made in America.
Rumor is Blue Tops are made in Mexico.

For house-side:

75 Ah x 4 = 300 Ah
59.8 lbs ea x 4 = 239.2 lbs

75 Ah x 3 = 225 Ah
59.8 lbs ea x 3 = 179.4 lbs.

My existing Universal Battery UB8D 250 Ah 12v Model 122500 167 lbs $485.57 + $97.92 shipping. Warranty is 12 months.

http://www.amazon.com/UPG-45964-Ub-8d-S ... B000RNY6P0

Review re Yellow Top D31A use as starting batteries on 7.3L:

"I have had a pair of these Optima D31A's in my old 7.3 Powerstroke for 4 years now and have not had any problems. Even when the glow plugs weren't working last winter and it took lots of cranking to start. When its time to change the batteries in my 6.0 I will be getting another pair of these for it. They are well worth the price and will outlast any lead acid battery out there."

http://www.amazon.com/Optima-Batteries- ... B00099VM9U

This is an interesting Amazon review comparing a true deep cycle battery (flooded golf cart batteries not AGM) with an Optima AGM:

“Big Giant Head says:

For a UPS, I'd actually venture to guess you'd have better luck with that Optima. Wet cells usually have a higher Peukart number, and AGM are lower. So when you draw a heavy load, a wet cell that's 100AH will not give you all that energy, the battery will "die" before it's given you all 100AH. Remove the load, let it "recover" (for up to a couple hours), and you can then sap the remaining power once the chemical processes catch up. For a car this can be nice, because you have a chance to start a battery that's "dead" if you let it recover. For a UPS or other critical (high) load, your equipment will stop functioning even before the battery is half-dead in some cases. An AGM will give you nearly 100% before the voltage falls to a dead-battery level, and for a UPS, 99 times out of 100 this is desired because you don't want to shut down your equipment. With an AGM, once it's dead, it's dead - very unlikely you can get anything more from that battery without a recharge. For a guy with a Jeep in the middle of the woods that was running the radio all day - an AGM may be a bad thing - if you were expecting that battery to bounce back after the lights and radio died off. But if you were in the middle of the woods blaring the radio all day - what were you thinking in the first place??? A wet-cell offers the "advantage" that Mr. Jeep sees the lights dimming, and kills the power - lets it sit for 2 hours, and it may actually have enough to start the engine.

So in my case, a single (7 year old) 75AH Optima D31T Yellow Top, under a 150 Amp load, outperformed two (brand new) 225AH wet-cells in parallel. Yeah, I'm serious! Yes, the wet cells have more capacity had I allowed them to recover. But to have to shut down my equipment for 15 minutes, to allow the batteries to "recover" for 2 hours isn't acceptable in my application. When using the Optima, I was able to run my inverter for a longer continuous draw before the voltage fell beyond 11.4V. So the inverter would run longer before shutting down on that single Optima - BUT, I would not be able to run it again without charging it back up. The wet cells - did allow me to run again post-recovery, that said, it was for less than 15 minutes at a time. Worth mentioning that the wet cells weighed 4 times more, and actually cost the same considering I had 4 6V 220AH wet cells up against a single 12V D31T. No, I don't work for these guys, I even detested this brand 7 years ago for their highway-robbery pricing. Since then, I've done a complete 180, Optima isn't the "Monster-Cable" equivalent of the battery industry, whereas a 300 dollar HDMI cable works no better than a 7 dollar Amazon variant - the Yellow Tops do perform differently from standard deep cycle wet cells.”


http://www.amazon.com/review/R2H5GOLBCN ... hisHelpful

Warranty sheet pdf attached. Yellow Top D31T and D31A spec sheets pdf attached.
Blue Top D31M spec sheet pdf attached.