Best / Largest main battery?

[chorky]

stall an Optima yellow H7 when my OE warranty is up next Fall.
If I were using accessories that required deeper c

The last 2 or 3 Optima's I had barely lasted 2 years at best. Some only 1. All replaced under warranty thankfully. The current one in my TJ is going on 2 years now but it's not holding a charge well at all. This will be my last Optima

In a running vehicle -
If a battery is fully charged at 12.8 volts and the system voltage is 12.8 or higher on a fully charged battery, it's hard to see a battery losing charge since what's across the terminals is the natural voltage of the fully charged battery anyway.
Float voltage is intended to compensate for the self-discharge of a battery sitting in waiting. So you don't need to operate at float voltage in an operational setting like driving as there won't be "self discharge".

CCCV - constant current/constant voltage -
With the CCCV method, lead acid batteries are charged in three stages, which are:
constant-current charge,
topping charge
float charge.
The constant-current charge applies the bulk of the charge and takes up roughly half of the required charge time; the topping charge continues at a lower charge current and provides saturation, and the float charge compensates for the loss caused by self-discharge.

You don't need "float" in these vehicles while being driven.

If your batteries are used for solar arrays, standby systems and so on, or stored, or unused, then that's where your float voltage comes in - compensate for the natural self-discharge while sitting around.

Don't get tangled with "float voltage" for a battery used in a vehicle and think that is what you need to see while driving it. That's not what float voltage is. Most can ignore that number unless the battery sits idle, unused. It's more for use with standby operations or battery tenders/minders. Not for a running vehicle.

Here's why I keep preaching on the idea that we are ruining our own batteries by not driving often enough or long enough, or keeping them otherwise fully charged - from "the experts" comes this great quote -
If continually deprived, the battery will eventually lose the ability to accept a full charge and the performance will decrease due to sulfation.

In other words, if you never drive it enough to keep up to a full charge, and say you start out at 12.8 new, but do short drives and it sits, and the voltage gets down to 12.4, then you drive it and the alternator charges it back up to 12.6 then it sits again and drops to 12.2 from sitting, and you take short drives later and it charges up to 12.4 while driving and you do this over and over and over and it never gets back up above 12.6 or 12.7 - eventually it will never again take a full charge, and it will lose capacity.

Yeah all that is why I have both jeeps connected to a battery charter/tender unless it's only a day or two until I go back to town. I was curious if you happened to know the temperature thresholds of when, of course depending on charge, the alternator is more likely to be at 15v rather than 14.something. I know it is variable but there has to be a temperature built into the programming somewhere because I definitely notice in the winter, below freezing and especially below 0 I am charging at flat out 15v constantly without a blip below that. And my battery is on a tender when at home parked so it's always sitting at or above 12.7

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[Reddout99]

He may not be wrong.
Battery in my 1995 F250 lasted over 12 years.
Battery in my 2011 Silverado went 6 years.
Granted, that's decades ago, the battery technology, manufacturers and more has changed, but I had GREAT luck with that Ford battery and it sat around a lot.

Thanks

 

[kevman65]

My plan is to install an Optima yellow H7 when my OE warranty is up next Fall.
If I were using accessories that required deeper cycles I'd do the red.

Optima was bought and is NOT the same Optima that got them all the raves.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Optima was bought and is NOT the same Optima that got them all the raves.

Yeah, they've gone down since before that time.
Odyssey is seen in a lot of places as getting better "owner reviews".
Optima is no longer a premium battery.

their technical performance lags compared to Odyssey per Consumer Reports tests and you can get more capacity from the Odyssey and DoD.

Lot's of talk about that out there (was doing research a while back "just in case" for my vehicles)

 

[Jclow801]

Does anyone use a trickle charger?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Does anyone use a trickle charger?

I have some of these for use on my cars and Jeeps ->
BatteryMinder 1500mA

 

[Rusty PW]

On the Power Wagon forum. No one has a good experience with the Optima batteries. Everyone is using the Odyssey as a first pick.

 

[ducatijosh]

So it looks like H7/94R batteries fit fine, Odyssey doesnt make one in the Extreme line though, only the performance, however dimentionally it looks like these Odyssey Extreme Group 27 batteries should be the same thing? Do those fit?

 

[ecidiego]

https://x2powerbattery.com/products/x2power-premium-agm-840cca-bci-group-94r-car-and-truck-battery if you can't find a 94R Odyssey.

 

[ducatijosh]

https://x2powerbattery.com/products/x2power-premium-agm-840cca-bci-group-94r-car-and-truck-battery if you can't find a 94R Odyssey.

I can but the group 27 batteries have better stats

https://www.odysseybatteries.com/odyssey/pc27f1750.html

 

[ecidiego]

I can but the group 27 batteries have better stats

https://www.odysseybatteries.com/odyssey/pc27f1750.html

It's 1.4" taller than the X2. I'd measure to make sure it won't hit something. I don't know how tall the stock battery is offhand.

 

[MojaveLawyer]

It means the battery might not receive a charge while driving. The 'smart charging' systems reduce alternator output to reduce load on the engine and increase fuel mileage. but depending on the battery you have, it may or may not get charged. For example, my battery has a bulk and absorption charge of 14.4-14.7v and a float of 13.6-13.7 volts. So if the alternator is downgraded and only pushing 13 volts, then the battery is not receiving any charging and the alternator is only keeping up with the voltage needs of vehicle operation.

Thank you so much for educating me on this! This makes sense now. Thank you!

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Thank you so much for educating me on this! This makes sense now. Thank you!

Please note is mention of "float volage" has little to no meaning once in your truck and you are driving it. It's only if the battery isn't in use and to prevent self-discharge.
You can safely ignore float voltage on these unless you are using the battery for a power supply, solar array, UPS and so on, or it's sitting and you need to maintain it and prevent self-discharge.
Otherwise, float really has no meaning in our use. You can safely ignore that. 13.0 is fine. It means things are in balance with charged or nearly charged batteries.

And no, these won't cut voltage to save mph and so on if the battery needs charged. They don't.
The idea is to cut the load after the batteries are charged or they are too hot.

This part:
>> So if the alternator is downgraded and only pushing 13 volts, then the battery is not receiving any charging and the alternator is only keeping up with the voltage needs of vehicle operation.<<

Isn't really true - if it's down to 13, either there's a heavy torque load and the system is trying to give you power to pass or make it up a mountain while towing, and it will rebound, or the batteries are near full charge, or getting hot so charge voltage is reduced.
Some misleading info there....
If the batteries are at or near full charge, they don't need to be running 13.5 and higher, or if they are hot, same thing - reduce the force pushing into the battery.
13.0 volts is still maintaining that battery against discharge, preventing anything from pulling a load from the battery and is perfectly fine.
After 8 hours on the road, my 2020 was seen with voltages in the 12.6 range - the batteries were 100% SoC (state of charge) and hot.
You'd think I'd get home to dead batteries the way some talk - not true - it kicked back up after a while and evened out about 12.8 to 13.0 - perfect to keep the batteries from supplying anything to the vehicle systems and enough to keep them full.

 

[Mr._Bill]

I can but the group 27 batteries have better stats

https://www.odysseybatteries.com/odyssey/pc27f1750.html

If the Group 27 fit, there would be a lot of threads about it, and a note in the owners manual. It's not just physical size, but the location of the battery posts. The 94R has the posts reversed, which is why it carries the R designation after the Group Number.

 

[ducatijosh]

If the Group 27 fit, there would be a lot of threads about it, and a note in the owners manual. It's not just physical size, but the location of the battery posts. The 94R has the posts reversed, which is why it carries the R designation after the Group Number.

Good info, thanks, didn't realize the posts would be on the wrong sides...

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