favorite brand of deep cycle battery

[bruceb58]

Lithium is absolutely the future, just don't know how far in the future it will be to get the prices down, and trickle down the proper charging technology. That being said I had AGM batteries for years and actually had an Optima and a Cabelas brand both go bad within 2 years and needed replaced on our old boat (5+ years ago). With our Cobalt I put in new Interstate standard flooded batteries and have had zero issues for 3-4 years now. I keep them topped off with distilled water (RV charging system is great), and keep them on a trickle charger at all times year round in the garage. I will have a hard time buying anything else when needed when they are barely over $100 each to swap.

The problem is the discharge current. Most LiFePO4 batteries have a max discharge current of 1C which means a 100AH battery can only continuous discharge 100A. The short term max current in 3C. An engine may draw over 500A when starting. The BMS will also have to be able to allow this large amount of current so that will become an expensive part of the battery.

Charging is not a huge issue since the BMS controls when to stop charging once the internal cell voltage reaches a maximum. In fact, way easier charging a lithium battery than a lead acid battery. With my lithium batteries I set the absorption and float voltage manually to what I want. Not a big deal.

[skno]

Trojan Deep Cycle are the best. You will pay more though

For a flooded lead acid true deep cycle, they are the best. However, not very good for a start battery especially with late model fuel injected engines.

They make multiple kinds of batteries now days. And to be honest I haven’t used a lot of others only deka, interstate, die hard. The popular big box batteries. But….. the Trojans i bought out performed and out lasted all by considerable amount. At least 50% easy. I assume there other batteries. Ate great as well ( I assume ).

[skno]

Trojan Deep Cycle are the best. You will pay more though

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We did enjoy our Trojans.

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[AsLan7]

Trojan Deep Cycle are the best. You will pay more though

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We did enjoy our Trojans.

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I should say we enjoyed their reserve capacity. Unfortunately one of the terminals on battery one broke off after our maintenance tech stepped on it. Those batteries also put a strain on my back when I removed them every year for winter as they were incredibly heavy.

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[skno]

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We did enjoy our Trojans.

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I should say we enjoyed their reserve capacity. Unfortunately one of the terminals on battery one broke off after our maintenance tech stepped on it. Those batteries also put a strain on my back when I removed them every year for winter as they were incredibly heavy.

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Yep heavy is good! AsLan are you to one who introduced me to northstar Bimini ??? I cant remember who tipped off on them but great industrial build they have.

[bruceb58]

Trojan Deep Cycle are the best. You will pay more though

For a flooded lead acid true deep cycle, they are the best. However, not very good for a start battery especially with late model fuel injected engines.

They make multiple kinds of batteries now days.

You have a link to one that is a starting battery?

[Krob1114]

We used Trojan batteries when we had a golf cart. Never thought about putting them in a boat.
I think we have Interstate, and that's what our marina stocks.

[sailor55330]

You know, after reading up and trying to research batteries, especially LIon or LifePo4, I've come to 2 conclusions-

1. It's really hard to find a technical write up on a head to head battery comparison. Everything is a Youtube video now, and often times, it's just a robotic voice reading website content.

2. When you do find someone that actually benchmarks and tests the high end, middle, and low end batteries, at the end of the day, there is a difference, but it's not as great as you might think in many cases. Some of the cheaper batteries perform very well for the price.

From what I can tell, build quality and discharge cycles are 2 of the bigger criteria. Well, if the battery is in a stationary setting (think dock box) that doesn't get banged around, then build quality, while important, becomes less of a factor from a durability standpoint than say a boondocking set up in a moving trailer....quality is still quality, no question about it. The second, being discharge cycles---A high end battery like a Battleborn might quote 5,000-8000 discharge cycles, where as a lower tier might quote 3,000 discharge cycles, but at 40% of the cost.

If I've researched correctly, a "discharge" cycle is often defined as a battery being taken down to 50%...that's 1 cycle... if' it's taken down to 25%, then that's 1/2 discharge cycle, and so on. So having a 5,000 cycle battery means you can discharge it and bring it back from 50% 5,000 times, in theory. I'm sure I've way oversimplifed this....but it's what my electrically challenged brain needs.

In the case of the solar lift charger I'm putting together that's minimal for me. My assumptions (not an EE by any means so I may be wrong)

The blower motor is a 1400w/hr motor. The lift runs for 5 mins That's using 120 watt-hrs each time it runs for round numbers.
The 100ah 24v battery bank will give me 2400wh, so each time I run the lift, I think I will be using about 5% of my rated battery bank power.
Consequently, 5% power usage means 1/20th of charge cycle....so, a 3000 cycle cheap battery should let me theorectically run the lift 60,000 times before the battery becomes unusable (at least in a perfect controlled environment). Obviously, that's not the real world.

I guess what I'm trying to say is depending on your usage and needs, I may not need the super high end batteries as I'm not running anything heavy like AC/Refrigeration/Heavy Electronics, etc....... A few LED lights and a blower a few times a week.