Deep cycle vs. regular

[Jeb 10+ year member]

what's the difference between a deep cycle battery and regular car battery?

Click to read more...

 

[Black_Jesus 10+ year member]

read bcae1.com

every word

twice.

before you post again //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif saves us time and u greef

 

[RiceNotNice 10+ year member]

'nuff respect to the one called black jesus (sorry just got back from jamaica). Seriously though, bcae1.com is great. If you read that and still have ?'s, ask. Great resource, easy to understand, and just plain good; i swear by it. (car hasn't burned down yet! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif )

 

[CarAudioAddict 10+ year member]

Basically and probably most importantly:

Regular Car Batteries, also known as Starting Batteries, are designed to put out a ton of Amperage (~1000 Amps) in quick bursts (

Deep Cycle Batteries are designed to put out Low to Moderate Amperage in for long periods of Time, and can be recharged more often

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

The technical reason is because starting batteries have very porous plates on the anode and cathode...the electrolyte can flow very easily through them, and therefore, the red/ox reactions that drive a battery can take place very rapidly. However, this has the side effect of wearing the plates down quickly, so regular lead acids don't tolerate "cycling" very well. Once they get fully depleted, often times they can't be brought back up to a regular voltage.

Deep cycle batteries, on the other hand, have thicker plates - like the previous post said, they can't provide a lot of inrush current, but they can be cycled hundreds of times down to a very low voltage and charged again.

 

[Nightskye 10+ year member]

Also, if you happen to run down a regular battery completely, chances are good that it's dead for good or won't come back as strong. Deep cycles can be run down and revived without a problem.

However, deep cycles are not great under the hood for the reason CarAudioAddict explained - they do not put out as much amperage needed for quick bursts for starting.

This is why you see Optima red tops (regular) under the hood and yellow tops (deep cycle) in the trunk. If you look at the Optima brochure, it shows how a yellow top deep cycle is actually a worse performer under the hood than your run-of-the-mill generic regular battery.

But it is great in the trunk to power a system //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/yumyum.gif.0556df42231b304b9c995aefd13928a8.gif

 

[lotas 10+ year member]

another thing to keep in mind is deep cycle batteries eventually die. They can only be run down so many times. There are two plates in the battery when you discharge the battery the plates move closer and closer together. When they touch, the battery is done.

Its quite a few times but eventually it will happen.