Which optima battery for rv

He has wheeled, broken, and modified a variety of rigs, from Toyotas to Jeeps to Fords to Chevies. He likes doing long distance overland travel and would happily spend every night in the bed of a pickup under the stars. Toggle navigation. Home Winch Database Articles Contact. Table of Contents. Starting Battery Use this for a vibration resistant, bulletproof, non-leaky starting-only battery.

Deep Cycle Battery Use this for starting and deep discharging - like winching, huge stereos, and 12V fridges. This is the number one question people have. The short version is this: RedTop Optimas: Starting battery - Your electrical system has a working alternator, a normal radio, no winch, no enormous lights, no big electrical loads. Keep reading, because Optimas have more differences than just the colors of their tops!

A Full Battery Most batteries like to live in this state for longevity. But we need them to do things that take them out of this state. That's it. If you can understand that, you can easily pick the right Optima. So let's get into that a little further and look at two battery types: Starting Deep Cycle. Slight Discharge After Starting After a short, quick burst of electricity, your battery gets charged up. During starting, the amount of electricity in the battery doesn't drop very much.

Here's what the starting battery is best at: A commute to work. Here's what happens: You start your car: Your starter motor draws a rapid burst of electricity from your battery for a few seconds while your engine turns over. You drive to work: Your alternator quickly tops off your battery as you drive.

You turn off your car: You arrive at work and your battery is in the same state as when you left your house in the morning. Your battery is a starting battery. Starting batteries are: Used for starting a vehicle only Are almost always fully charged, except when drawn down slightly for starting.

Deep Discharge After Winching After a sustained winch pull or some other long-term, high draw electrical load, an enormous amount of electricity is taken out of the battery.

Let's take look at another scenario: Winching. So here's the deal: The difference between this and the commuter situation is that a winch pull can be long and intense!

This results in a slightly wider width and the upraised terminal ridges on the top. RedTops batteries are simple: It's your normal car starting battery on steroids. But remember! So when do you use a RedTop Optima? It's a deep cycle plus cranking battery. A good rule of thumb for YellowTop Optimas is this: If you've added something to your electrical system that can rapidly use electricity without immediately replenishing it, you need an Optima.

Here's why: YellowTops are deep cycle batteries. How full do you think your battery will be? Not very. But that's what a YellowTop is built for. This is another prime example. Again, this is not a job for a RedTop.

This includes things like: Vehicles that don't even have a charging system: This is common for drag racers and others that don't want or need the complexity and weight of a charging system. Electric vehicles: It probably goes without saying that something that runs on electricity will deeply drain batteries.

Equipment that uses a lot of electricity to run pumps, actuators, hydraulics, lights, etc. Trolling motors: You go out all day and recharge your YellowTop at night. Refbacks are Off. Forum Rules. Inflation in RV park prices? Semis on the interstates. Riverstone disc brake question. Cheap Handling Fix. Shopping for a new GMC , which What broke while on your last RV Thumbs Up! Winegard Travler Pro. Oil Change and other Maintenance All times are GMT The time now is AM.

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Browse Most Commented. Browse Most Popular. You can also expect efficient power from this battery. It has a flat discharge curve, which will hold above 12V for up to 90 percent of its capacity use. This means that huge boosts in run-time are delivered. If that was not enough, we noticed that this battery promises a much longer service life when compared with the other batteries that are available for purchase today.

Capacity and power : There are two metrics worth paying attention to when choosing a battery. The cranking amps are how much power is used to start the vehicle, so you want a battery with more CA than the engine demands. Ah, which stands for Ampere hours, shows how much power they can deliver for an hour, so a 75 Ah battery can provide 75 amps for an hour.

Figuring out how much power you need, whether you need a new starting battery or one for general use, is important. Bear in mind that you can install several batteries to the RV, both for starting and general electrical system usage. Deep cycle or starter : RVs require more power than the average car, so they need a higher depth of discharge to keep everything from water pumps to microwaves to refrigerators.

Whereas a starter battery is used to provide a powerful but brief jolt to start the engine. Good deep cycle batteries last longer than starter batteries, on average. Flooded lead-acid batteries lose the mixture of water and acid over time and need to be refilled. Valve regulated lead-acid batteries are more expensive but require virtually no maintenance. However, they do take longer to recharge. The third type is AGM or Absorbed Glass Mat , a type of lead-acid battery with a fiberglass mat that requires less maintenance and has a slower self-discharge time.

They can sit idle for a longer period without any damage. BB code is On. Smilies are On. Trackbacks are Off. Pingbacks are Off. Refbacks are Off.

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