# Car battery VS deep cycle battery.



## lightseeker2009 (Sep 12, 2012)

I've got a bad experience with a deep cycle battery. I bought a expensive well known brand but the battery was dead just a while after it's warantee expired.
now I might be partly to blame as I did not maintain it with a trickle charger. I did however charged it as soon as possible after using it.

My question: Will a normal lead acid car battery be able to last just as long as a deep cycle battery if maintained the same, with both being used maybe 20 times a year during power failures etc?

What is the best way to properly maintain a ''maintenance free car battery'' used in the way I described? Can you leave a car battery on a trickle charger indefinately without any ill effects?

Thanks!


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## ChrisGarrett (Sep 12, 2012)

lightseeker2009 said:


> I've got a bad experience with a deep cycle battery. I bought a expensive well known brand but the battery was dead just a while after it's warantee expired.
> now I might be partly to blame as I did not maintain it with a trickle charger. I did however charged it as soon as possible after using it.
> 
> My question: Will a normal lead acid car battery be able to last just as long as a deep cycle battery if maintained the same, with both being used maybe 20 times a year during power failures etc?
> ...



Well, if you're discharging things down quite a bit, you'll want what DCs have to offer. Car batteries are good for short bursts of current, over shorter periods of time--cold cranking amps, but they don't like being discharged down to say 50% and then charged back up for X amount of cycles, from what I've read.

My research shows 2-5 years for SLA/AGM batteries, which is kind of what we get out of our car batteries.

I bought a little SLA/AGM (12Ah) for my solar kit and I'll just hit it with some juice and top it off every 2-3 months.

You can spend $40 on 3 stage SLA/AGM charger and go that route. Take the battery out and use it here and there, to prevent sulfation. 

Chris


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## SemiMan (Sep 12, 2012)

Define "use" 20 times a year. Are you planning to draw it down 50%, 80%.

A "GOOD" AGM or GEL deep cycle battery can be discharged hundred of times to almost 0 if recharged immediately. If you have something to cut them off at 80%, then you can get 400+ cycles with some. They will also sit on a float charge for a decade and still have most of their capacity. "GOOD" AGM batteries can go a 6-12 months without a top up IF you keep them cool (22c-72F). If they get warm, i.e. outside in the summer or outside in warm climates, then that amount of time quickly drops. That is true for all lead-acid batteries.

Good flooded maintenance free car batteries can also survive 5-10 years on a tolerable float charge. You will not get nearly as many deep cycles out of them though so generally cutting them off at 50% remaining capacity is a good recommendation to keep the life up.

Flooded deep cycle can be exceptional in terms of life, or better than a basic car battery but not as good as a good AGM\GEL.

Get a very good charger. Which ones ... I honestly have a hard time making suggestions as generally use one of my lab power supplies or my custom one. Some "so-called" good chargers, in my experience, use excessive charge voltage. That may help to bring a bad battery back to some degree, but it cooks a good battery. There are some lower amperage chargers appear to have proper charging control. They seem expensive, i.e. $50 for 3 amps versus $40 for 12 amps, but your batteries will thank you.

Semiman


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## cland72 (Sep 12, 2012)

I have two types: a DieHard Platinum which is supposed to be the bees knees, and a Blue Top Optima. I haven't had trouble with either, although I've heard Optima's quality has gone down significantly in the last decade due to outsourcing production to Mexico (used to be USA made).


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## ElectronGuru (Sep 12, 2012)

+1

I used to buy optima red and yellows and have moved over to diehard AGM (platinum/gold+).


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## cdalejef (Sep 14, 2012)

The Diehard Platinum's are made by Odyssey which are the best batteries that money can buy. Like cland72 said, Optima's used to be good batteries but not anymore.


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## HighlanderNorth (Sep 15, 2012)

The factory/stock battery in my 2005 Dodge 4x4 truck that I bought new in 2005 is still humming along after 7 years and 4 months and 80,000 miles. I bet it will die this winter though. But I said that last year at about this time too, and its still going now! I have never had a car battery last this long. I dont see any label on it or any date or how many months its supposed to last, etc...


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## alpg88 (Sep 15, 2012)

.......


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## LowLumen (Sep 15, 2012)

For your intermittent usage, long idle times, and deep cycle during power outage, I think an AGM battery is the way to go. I have a Power-Sonic AGM 21Ah that is going 6+ years old used for power outage to run such essentials as tankless water heater and coffee grinder... I just checked it for capacity a couple weeks ago and still shows well over 80%. I keep it topped with a Battery Tender Jr. every 3 months or so, and always keep it ready during the winter 'power outage' season. Before this little thing I had a 100Ah wet cell deep cycle. It was a pain to lug around and keep it healthy with constant charge. They self discharge much faster. It lasted barely 6 years but no doubt my neglect played a part in it's demise. I would rather work with 2 smaller AGM batteries than one larger; One can be charging while the other is in use. Don't use a car starter battery for this kind of deep cycle abuse.


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 15, 2012)

Maybe I just had a bad battery that should have been covered by it's warantee. I say this because I had a car jumpstart pack. This kit had only a 17 amp sealed battery. I really used and abused it. Fully discharging it by using it on an inverter while out camping. Then only charging it 2 days later. This battery lasted at least 8 years with this total abuse. So for a deep cycle expensive 102A battery to fail after just a few months, well it just did not make sense. 17A is not enough to power my tv etc for longer than a few minutes so I do need a bigger battery, but if they are only going to last 12 months at a time, I will have to look at another way.


Please recommend me a cheapish dedicated trickle charger that I can leave on the battery indefinately.


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## HarryN (Sep 15, 2012)

I have gone through the same challenge with a car battery, which lead to some discussions and research. I would completely avoid a "super cheap" trickle charger if you can. The reason is that these tend to cause sulfate deposits on the plates that just never come back off.

The "better" chargers use a "pulse" charge which tends to break up this coating, and reduce the chances of formation.

What some people do is put a small solar panel in the car dash board along with one of the pulse charger and that is supposed to be about optimal. Of course you can also just plug it in, which is a lot cheaper, but sometimes running a cord to the car isn't practical.


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 15, 2012)

Thanks Harry. But it's not for my car. My car maintans it's battery just fine. I'm talking about using a seperate car battery inside my house with a inverter. I agree, I don't want cheap and nasty charger. I just don't want the most expensive model on the market either


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## marcham (Sep 15, 2012)

What size inverter? Inverters can draw very high current and will rapidly destroy a battery if not properly sized. As an example, a 2000 Watt inverter should have a 400-800Ah battery bank if using flooded cells and 200-400 Ah if using an AGM bank.

Did you ever maintain the electrolyte level with distilled water? Did you ever equalize it? The truth is that flooded deep cycle batteries require ongoing maintenance.

Sent from my GT-I9100M using Tapatalk 2


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 16, 2012)

marcham said:


> What size inverter? Inverters can draw very high current and will rapidly destroy a battery if not properly sized. As an example, a 2000 Watt inverter should have a 400-800Ah battery bank if using flooded cells and 200-400 Ah if using an AGM bank.
> 
> Did you ever maintain the electrolyte level with distilled water? Did you ever equalize it? The truth is that flooded deep cycle batteries require ongoing maintenance.
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9100M using Tapatalk 2



I use a 300W inverter, only uses about half of that at most. I have never maintained the battery, but it was used so little and its liquid levels was fine even when it was dead


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## Kilted (Sep 16, 2012)

I've done a few battery systems from a solar powered grid tied 24KWH/5KW house systems to camping systems. You said you killed a 102AMPH battery. OK lets see of that 102 amp hour you have a usable 50% that's 51amp x 12v = 612watt hours. Whats your load? You mentioned a TV but did not say what size or type. LCD, plasma and LED all have vastly different power draw. I'll assume 250w for the TV, you did not mention the type or size of inverter, I'll assume 400w MSW (Modified SQUARE Wave) not good on the electronics but they are the most come and even bad ones have 90% efficiency. So 250w x 1.1 = 275watts draw, that gives you approx 612/275 = 2.2 hours of run time when the battery was new, run time will be less as the battery ages. IF you left the battery in a discharged state for a few days each time the battery will sulfate up quickly. 

Give us the numbers on load, type of inverter and number of hours of operation each day to calculate the size of battery bank you need.

Concorde makes some of the best AGM batteries on the market first learn about the batteries; 
http://www.sunxtender.com/pdfs/Sun_Xtender_Battery_Technical_Manual.pdf

Use their load calculator; http://www.sunxtender.com/otherpdf/sunextenderbatterysizingtips.pdf
Applications; http://www.sunxtender.com/applications.php

Or perhaps you need a different battery chemistry, look into LiFePO4;
http://www.portablesolarpower.biz/

http://www.batteryspace.com/lifepo4prismaticbattery128v60ah768wh100aratewithbalancingpcm.aspx

A better Sine wave inverter;
http://www.xantrex.com/power-products/power-inverters/prowatt-sw.aspx
Xantrex is one I happen to use there are several other quality OEM's out there. Besides the Prowatt SW 600, I also have a Prosine 2000w inverter/charger which is a really good system.

I've had a few MSW inverters and I'm in process of getting rid of them.

=D~~ Kilted


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 16, 2012)

Kilted said:


> I've done a few battery systems from a solar powered grid tied 24KWH/5KW house systems to camping systems. You said you killed a 102AMPH battery. OK lets see of that 102 amp hour you have a usable 50% that's 51amp x 12v = 612watt hours. Whats your load? You mentioned a TV but did not say what size or type. LCD, plasma and LED all have vastly different power draw. I'll assume 250w for the TV, you did not mention the type or size of inverter, I'll assume 400w MSW (Modified SQUARE Wave) not good on the electronics but they are the most come and even bad ones have 90% efficiency. So 240w x 1.1 = 264watts draw, that gives you approx 612/264 = 2.3 hours of run time when the battery was new, run time will be less as the battery ages. IF you left the battery in a discharged state for a few days each time the battery will sulfate up quickly.
> 
> Give us the numbers on load type of inverter and number of hours of operation each day to calculate the size of battery bank you need.
> 
> ...



Ok, I've quikly done a test, I'm also into the RC hobby thing as well so it was easy as I do have 11.1V lipo batteries and a watt-meter. I use a 300-watt Ellies inverter. My TV is a 32" led, then when the power is out and for this test, I only connect my dish and my dvd recorder. Total watts drawn from the battery, this is with all the losses etc was between 120-130W. It was not constant and kept on hovering between 120 and 130w. 

I use a 6AH lipo 11.1V pack to power my inverter when camping as I use it to power only a 20W energy saver globe. I get at least 3 hours runtime, more than enough as I go to sleep early anyway. It's not good enough to power my tv as its runtime will be to low, so I need a bigger battery again.


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## Norm (Sep 16, 2012)

lightseeker2009 said:


> I use a 6AH lipo 11.1V pack to power my inverter when camping as I use it to power only a 20W energy saver globe. I get at least 3 hours runtime, more than enough as I go to sleep early anyway.



This is a terribly inefficient way to create light, there are too many unnecessary inefficient wasteful steps between the power source and the light source.

Norm


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 16, 2012)

Norm said:


> This is a terribly inefficient way to create light, there are too many unnecessary inefficient wasteful steps between the power source and the light source.
> 
> Norm




100% agreed. But I use the same light as a source of light when I do have a 220V power source available at a camping site. By camping I mean fishing. So if there are no power, I then use my inverter. If I do need more than 6AH I just connect the inverter to my car battery.

What light do you suggest I use that can be powered by my battery pack that will give me the same amount of light and spill that I get from my 220V, 20W energy saver?


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## Kilted (Sep 16, 2012)

lightseeker2009 said:


> Ok, I've quikly done a test, I'm also into the RC hobby thing as well so it was easy as I do have 11.1V lipo batteries and a watt-meter. I use a 300-watt Ellies inverter. My TV is a 32" led, then when the power is out and for this test, I only connect my dish and my dvd recorder. Total watts drawn from the battery, this is with all the losses etc was between 120-130W. It was not constant and kept on hovering between 120 and 130w.
> 
> I use a 6AH lipo 11.1V pack to power my inverter when camping as I use it to power only a 20W energy saver globe. I get at least 3 hours runtime, more than enough as I go to sleep early anyway. It's not good enough to power my tv as its runtime will be to low, so I need a bigger battery again.



OK, with that load your 102A battery should have provided about 5 hours of run time. Sounds like bad battery, bad charger. Get a charger that remains permanently attached that means one that is 3-stage with automatic float. I use a BatteryMinder Model 12248 2/4/8 Amp with De-Sulfator. Go to the Concorde/SunXtender website and pick your battery. 

Or if you can bear the cost look into the LiFePO4 60 amp battery linked above also get their LFP charger so it can be dedicated.

OR look into Goal Zero Yeti https://www.goalzero.com/shop/p/140/Goal-Zero-Yeti-1250-Solar-Generator/2:8/ it has every thing your asking for in one compact package including solar power.

=D~~ Kilted


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## Norm (Sep 16, 2012)

lightseeker2009 said:


> 100% agreed. But I use the same light as a source of light when I do have a 220V power source available at a camping site. By camping I mean fishing. So if there are no power, I then use my inverter. If I do need more than 6AH I just connect the inverter to my car battery.
> 
> What light do you suggest I use that can be powered by my battery pack that will give me the same amount of light and spill that I get from my 220V, 20W energy saver?



Not wanting to take this thread off topic, check the Google search. I'm sure members could suggest many other options, the link is for 12 V compact fluorescent bulbs.

Please start a new thread on the topic if you wish to discuss it further.

Norm


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## lightseeker2009 (Sep 16, 2012)

Thanks Norm. I did not even know these globes come in 12V. I will check to see if I can get some locally.


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## 45/70 (Sep 16, 2012)

Just to touch on something that wasn't directly addressed, the difference between an automotive starting battery and a conventional, deep cycle marine type battery, are the thickness and number of plates.

Comparing similar Ah auto and deep cycle batteries, auto batteries have many more plates. This allows a large (but ideally, brief) amount of current to be drawn from the battery, and then (again, ideally) the battery is immediately recharged, resulting in minimal wear/damage to the plates.

Deep cycle batteries have much thicker plates. This obviously doesn't allow as many to be fitted into the same size package, so these type batteries generally have significantly less "cranking amps", which is determined by the surface area of the plates (as opposed to the overall Ah, which is determined by the amount of electrolyte). The thicker plates do however, allow deeper discharging, as well as longer times between charging. The wear, or damage is the same, but due to the plates being much thicker, the overall wear is proportionately less.

In either case, both types of conventional wet cell Pb batteries prefer shallow discharges, and recharging as soon as possible. The deep cycle type has an advantage here, but only because the more robust plate construction allows more abuse.

Dave


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## Samy (Sep 17, 2012)

I have a 105 amp/hr deep cycle battery powered by a folding portable 60w solar panel. It's all managed by a 30 amp 12v solar regular (brand Steca) which has an LCD display and it monitors all power going in and power being used by accessories, there's lots of good info on it to keep track of what the solar panel and battery are doing. I use this set-up both at home and when camping. Its a big heavy battery, but it's portable and holds lots of juice. 
At home, i use it to charge all my rechargeable batteries (AA's, AAA's lithium's etc) and for use during possible power loss in conjunction with "5050" led strip lighting i have cut into usable, portable lengths. My entire flashaholic power needs are powered by this system so i'm off the power grid! Definately guilt-free lumens! Every few weeks i sit the solar panel out in the yard and run the cable back into the garage to charge the deep cycle battery, it only takes a little while to top it back to full - the solar regular monitors the battery and tells me when it's full. I've never needed to, but i could carry the battery into the house and light up the whole house with my LED strip lighting if we ever lose power for an extended period.
When camping, i use the "5050" led strip lighting to light up the camper tent top, annex and surrounds and my camping trailer is set-up with various 12v outlets for a range of equipment we use when camping. With kids, i like having a lot of light around the camp-site so i have the place lit up like a Christmas tree. I also use the 60w solar panel when camping to top up the battery during the day.

My battery is only a cheap lead acid deep cycle battery, but for my uses it never gets below 12.5 volts before a top up so it doesn't have a hard life.

cheers


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