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Deep Cycle / Leisure Battery.. what to look for? Deep Cycle / Leisure Battery.. what to look for?
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Equipping the Overland Vehicle Vehicle accessories - Making your home away from home comfortable, safe and reliable.
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  #1  
Old 9 Jun 2017
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Deep Cycle / Leisure Battery.. what to look for?
Hi guys

I'm looking for a second deep cycle / leisure battery for my truck.

The battery will be inside the cabin and will be used to power a Webasto or similar air heater only. It will be charged via a split-charge system. The trip I have in mind will partly be in extremely cold conditions.

Right now I have two option in mind...

A cheap Hankook 110Ah leisure battery. £80ish

or

An Optima Yellow Top 55Ah deep cycle battery. £170ish

On the one hand, the Hankook is cheap and seems to have a high capacity. The Optima is twice the price and half the output. So it seems an easy choice. But, I have had Optima Yellow Tops before and they were really fantastic, so I don't mind spending to get top notch batteries, but I'm in no mind to burn money needlessly.

Is the advantage of the Optima just that it is a dual purpose battery (i.e. starter and deep cycle)? For my main starter battery I have an even better unit, an Odyssey PC1400 which is rated at 900 CCA vs. the Optima's 750 CCA, so I don't feel that I especially need a backup starter battery.

So, would I be wasting my money to get the Optima?

Opinions appreciated!

Thanks

EO
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Old 9 Jun 2017
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When it comes to battery, I always go for the best. You will only appreciate it when the cheap one will fail. I think they call it Murphy's Law. Plus you always get what you pay.

So, to make your decision "harder", I would consider also a good EXIDE DEEP CYCLE GEL battery.

We have bought one with 85Ah capacity for 260 euro back in November 2011. We still have it and THANKS GOD, it works just perfect ;-)

By the way, LTH have a pretty good range of DEEP CYCLE batteries and they belong to the same manufacturing group with OPTIMA.
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Old 12 Jun 2017
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leisure battery
i would go for a optima yellow, if your planning to keep the vehicle more than a couple of years,i am in the process of getting new leisure batteries after mine failed.but after checking the dates on the batteries they are 16 years old,so i think i've had my moneys worth.so wouldn't use any other plus no worries of spilling acid when off road.

moodybloo
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Old 13 Jun 2017
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Its hard not to recommend going for another Optima, I've run a yellow top in the Discovery for 10 Canadian Winters (at least down to -40C for a while each Winter) its still going strong and never let me down for starting or winching.
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Old 13 Jun 2017
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Doesn't matter what class of battery you put in if you mistreat it by never getting it to 100% charged and always take out a little more each day than you put in. An auxiliary battery with just a passive split charge input is pretty much guaranteed to be in this situation and some would say you might as well get the crappiest cheapest starter battery you can find and throw it out every 18 months and put another in.
If you were to add an active battery charger and drive long enough each day to get a battery to close to 100% or add a mains charger for use when you have hookups then there would be some point in installing a quality battery.

One thing often missed is that an engine battery that just starts engines has the cushiest life of any battery. Start the engine - 300 amps for 1 second which is a fraction of an amp hour and that tiny amount of energy is replaced in a minute or two. So they should last for many years because they do nothing.
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Old 13 Jun 2017
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Thanks for the input guys.

I'm investing a lot in a cabin air heater that will be necessary to maintain anything like a reasonable temperature in the car. So I decided to go for the best battery for the job, I got the biggest Optima Yellow Top I could find.

I don't think charging will be an issue, as I tend to drive for long stints; this is not a camper which will be parked up somewhere for a week and putter along between European camping sites.

Now I just need to fit the split charging system. And the heater.

Thanks

EO
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Old 17 Jun 2017
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Worth considering is a VSR as well, which pretty much does the same job with a split charge system.

By the way, which OPTIMA did you opt for? Type & specs?
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Old 17 Jun 2017
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I got a YTS 5.5 65 Ah 975 CCA.

Will stick with the relay system as it's what I have now. Like to keep things simple.
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