AGM Battery Question - Does Brand Matter?

[FadedSpy 10+ year member]

I have a local shop here that has a Agm Semi battery specially designed for trucks in Cali because State law prevents them from idling longer than 5 minutes. I'm not sure what brand it is but it's a heavy huge agm battery and he only wants $150 for it.

He's also got some that are similar in size to the Kinetik 2400 series non name brand AGM batteries for $120

Are XS Power and Kinetik the only safe AGM to use for car audio? Just looking for something to help out my VFL 150.1

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[brian84corvette 10+ year member]

most batterys are re badged and sold as ____ name brand from one of 3 major build houses

with a few exeptions - odyssey makes their own agm batterys in house and they are bad arse.

im running no name brand agm batterys in my build and they are doing super so far.

i also have a agm battery in my montecarlo that i got from autozone - top and side posts not shure which group that is - but that battery ***** and wont hold a great charge like my other agms do. let it sit for a month and found it at like 11.9v resting yuck ! autozone agm = not working so good for me

 

[Spl4200]

most batterys are re badged and sold as ____ name brand from one of 3 major build houseswith a few exeptions - odyssey makes their own agm batterys in house and they are bad arse.

im running no name brand agm batterys in my build and they are doing super so far.

i also have a agm battery in my montecarlo that i got from autozone - top and side posts not shure which group that is - but that battery ***** and wont hold a great charge like my other agms do. let it sit for a month and found it at like 11.9v resting yuck ! autozone agm = not working so good for me

Link to the ones that are working good for you? ; )

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

The batteries that work best are designed to charge and discharge fast. Batteries like you are talking about are designed to release slow for a long time. XS, BATCAP, and Northstar prove to be the best for our application.

 

[FadedSpy 10+ year member]

The batteries that work best are designed to charge and discharge fast. Batteries like you are talking about are designed to release slow for a long time. XS, BATCAP, and Northstar prove to be the best for our application.

What properties of an AGM allow it to Charge and Discharge faster than other AGM batteries? If they're all built the same, and have the same components, wouldn't they all act the same?

I will see if I can get a model number off of his batteries when I go in there today. If not, maybe I can get a 30 day warranty on it and take it back if it's not doing so well

 

[FadedSpy 10+ year member]

I just called down there, they have Excite Batteries

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

Get something with a low internal resistance. The brands that NoLoud4U mentioned are a good example. Batcap's probably have the lowest, but are more expensive than XS. Personally, I would go with XS. Some people may disagree

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

What properties of an AGM allow it to Charge and Discharge faster than other AGM batteries? If they're all built the same, and have the same components, wouldn't they all act the same?
I will see if I can get a model number off of his batteries when I go in there today. If not, maybe I can get a 30 day warranty on it and take it back if it's not doing so well

They are not all built the same. East penn and deka clones are but not the specialty batteries. That's how 1 XS 3100 can run as much as 4 cheaper batteries

 

[brian84corvette 10+ year member]

the op asked about how internal resistance works in batterys = its kinda like how ohms work on subs / speakers...

the lower the internal resistance on the battery = the more power that battery can put off in a dead short situation in a measured amount of time vs a battery that has a higher internal resistance can put out less in that same measured amount of time....

letts say - for fun you were to take a piece of 1/0 wire and touch the negative terminal to the positive terminal of a battery = dead short

this will allow for the most amount of power to be transfered that the battery is capable of.

lets say that you touched the + to the - for 1 measured second. if you did this on a car audio battery - you might see 250 amps pulled across that piece of 1/0 wire in that one measured second ( made up # for refrence only ) - but if you did the same thing with a battery having a higher internal resistance that battery may only pull 175 amps thru that 1/0 wire in that same amount of measured time.... because thats all the battery can do max.

so if you were to get a battery not intended for car audio use with a high internal resistance - and have a big power hungry amp hooked up to it - during a big bass note your amp may say to the battery - hey to get this bass note to play i need 250 amps of juice for 1 second of time - but the battery will tell the amp = here is my 175amps of avalable power that i can give you sorry i dont have anymore enjoy your low voltage amp i hope you dont fry up.

so you can see how its much harder for an amp to pull big power thru crappy batterys - as most bass notes are instantanious and lasting for only short amounts of time

 

[FadedSpy 10+ year member]

the op asked about how internal resistance works in batterys = its kinda like how ohms work on subs / speakers...the lower the internal resistance on the battery = the more power that battery can put off in a dead short situation in a measured amount of time vs a battery that has a higher internal resistance can put out less in that same measured amount of time....

letts say - for fun you were to take a piece of 1/0 wire and touch the negative terminal to the positive terminal of a battery = dead short

this will allow for the most amount of power to be transfered that the battery is capable of.

lets say that you touched the + to the - for 1 measured second. if you did this on a car audio battery - you might see 250 amps pulled across that piece of 1/0 wire in that one measured second ( made up # for refrence only ) - but if you did the same thing with a battery having a higher internal resistance that battery may only pull 175 amps thru that 1/0 wire in that same amount of measured time.... because thats all the battery can do max.

so if you were to get a battery not intended for car audio use with a high internal resistance - and have a big power hungry amp hooked up to it - during a big bass note your amp may say to the battery - hey to get this bass note to play i need 250 amps of juice for 1 second of time - but the battery will tell the amp = here is my 175amps of avalable power that i can give you sorry i dont have anymore enjoy your low voltage amp i hope you dont fry up.

so you can see how its much harder for an amp to pull big power thru crappy batterys - as most bass notes are instantanious and lasting for only short amounts of time

Excellent reply! I was really hoping to get away with a $150 Agm battery but I don't want to fry my amp, that's for sure. If I get a chance to look into the Excite batteries they carry and get a model number I might be able to find out how quickly they can discharge and whether it's worth a second look or if I should save that extra $100 and get the XS D3400 for $249.99

 

[ylpkm]

but dont forget the size also matters. If you could supply us with some details on the semi agm battery we could give better input. If this huge semi agm battery is huge, this also comes into consideration. would you rather have a slightly better (ex.) 50 AH battery, or a slightly more internal resistant 100 AH battery? Look at the comparisons done between northstar vs juicebox vs caps vs some others (there is a thread somewhere). They are close to each other, for a daily person who just wants it to work without damaging their components, it may not be worth the extra money if you specifically dont need its slightly better performance. Perhaps get the bigger semi agm and a maxwell cap bank and use them together.

Battery comparison threads:

http://www.caraudioclassifieds.org/forum/testing-scientific-data-discussion/171401-my-test-group-31-battery-roundup-*round-1*.html

http://www.caraudioclassifieds.org/forum/testing-scientific-data-discussion/173651-juicebox-vs-nsb-vs-supercaps.html

and before someone asks why to use caps and bats in unison, if the alt charges at a good level, the caps will supply a good amount of power till the battery reserve is even touched, at the same time as stopping any dimming or huge voltage drops.

 

[FadedSpy 10+ year member]

I just finished reading both threads. Thank you for taking the time to post them. I will be going to the shop today to hopefully get a make and model of the Semi battery as well as the other one I mentioned in previous posts. I want to do a bit more research on them before I pull the trigger. I'm only pushing an American Bass VFL 150.1 on two AB XFL 12's @ 1ohm so I think the Semi battery would suffice for daily driver, I just want to keep the amp safe. It's gone in to protect a couple of times already on my Kinetik 1400

 

[pawn man 10+ year member]

talking from experience. yes brand does matter. xs power may cost a little more but there is a huge difference. you talk to anyone running a system that draws lots of current that has switched from another brand to xs power and they will tell you the same. huge diff.

 

[fatboytyler]

The cheap batteries work great, but they also don't have the overall performance of batteries like XS Power. You can achieve the same result, but it'll take more batteries to equal up. So in the end, you pay the same and have twice as many batteries. So I would vote on XS Power since they've been proven to be the best. But I know Kinetik, BatCap, and Deka all hold their own.

 

[bluelake08]

i use die hard platinum batteries.they are made by odyssey.and have worked great.i was tuning my stereo the other day and played with it for over a half an hour without motor running and didnt realize i had headlights on and jeep still started.i have a jl 300/2 amp and a jl xd 600/1.was very surprised the battery had that much juice