Auxillary Optima yellow top battery 03 expy xlt

[kgreenjinx]

I am going to be installing an the optima yellow top battery and will probably be going with the Painless Wiring and Isolator. My question is on the mounting location. I had thought about installing it in the very back end. But, with all the other video components, I hate to take up space in the cabin. My thought is to mount it in the grill in front of the radiator. This will be used to power a 2000 watt invertor and 4 screens. The invertor will power a ps3 for the kids and laptrops for us. All the other items will run off 12vdc. (wdtv movie box, screens, and may want to add lights on the bull bar) If i turn the battery sideways, would it block to much air flow and be asking for trouble. I will be installing a fuse panel which will feed all the auxillary items. As well as a time delay relay for power off of items. Thoughts? Concerns?

 

[Thermo]

As long as you keep the battery a few inches from the radiator and you haven't added something like a supercharger, you will be fine in the way of cooling. Obviously, you want to keep the battery as far off to the side of the radiator as possible. This will minimized the amount of cooling loss that you may experience.

As for the battery mounting, why go through all that hassle. If you are upgrading the batteries, switch over to a red top too and then turn the batteries sideways compared to how the factory battery sits and you should be able to fit both of the batteries in the stock location. We do this all the time on the 1st gens.

As for your isolator, what kind of isolator are you getting? Solenoid type or the "stereo amp" style (looks like a mini stereo amp you would use for music). While the solenoid styles are cheaper, you will get what you pay for. The other style is much better and will make for lots of garanteed starts.

if you need more information about how to wire this up and whatnot, let me know. I have done a few kits like this.

 

[kgreenjinx]

I never would have thought of turning the factory location sideways. great thought. I will measure it up. I did not know that about the differences in isiolator. After looking, I may go with Warns isolator. It is resonably priced and has pretty good reviews and it appears it is not like the solenoid style. It has an aluminum heat sink style casing. I will definately need to research installation a bit and will probably let you know WHEN I have questions. I know I will. I just want to put on the right equipment the first time and never have to re-do it. Being our only family vehicle, I don't want preventable breakdowns.

http://www.warn.com/truck/accessories/battery_isolator.shtml

 

[GAINMOB]

or get a dual battery setup...search dual battery and you'll find the link...its for 2 red tops

 

[tonydiv]

Wrangler power products makes the dual battery tray that I used for my red tops. There's a thread about it here somewhere.

 

[kgreenjinx]

I think it is the worth the money to get the tray from wrangler. I dont think I will get the extras from them though because of cost. Will probably piece stuff out. I read in another post I could buy just the tray. Now with the redtops, can they take discharge very well? I will have a relay that will allow 10 minutes of power to the accessories after the key is switched off. So it may sit at a reduced voltage for a couple days before it is recharged if we dont drve anywhere. I will set it up where it only charges when the engine is running. Don't want a dead main battery. I also need to check amps on current alternator. Hate to overwork it. may need to upgrade.

 

[dougmcp]

If you want good batteries for an inverter buy some decent 6v or 12v golf cart or floor scrubber lead acid deep cycle batteries and forget the Optimas. The Optima quality has gone downhill in recent years and the returns for failure are high. Neither the Red Top, Yellow Top or Blue Top are true deep cycle batteries.
Don't worry about tying your main battery to the inverter as they all have a shutdown voltage at around 10.5v and after shut down the batteries should bounce back up within 10 minutes to starting voltages.

 

[OokeyIkky]

I'm going to have to disagree with the low quality on the Optimas. I have read around that some people are having issues initially with their Optimas but the reason is because they can sit for a long time in the stores before someone picks it up. So sometimes the batteries will have sat for so long dead and can't get charged back up. Other than that I haven't heard anything about bad quality.

I used to work in AGE in the USAF and all our equipment (mobile heaters, air conditioners, generators, nitrogen generating carts, etc) had red top optimas. Good deep cycle battery with high CCA (cold cranking amps). Never had a dead battery unless some retarded cop or crew chief powered off a unit and left the lights or master switches on.

IIRC the yellow tops have better deep cycling but less CCA than a red top. Yellow tops prolly would have been better for us with constant on/off of our equipment but I don't know enough to say if the higher CCA made a difference for us. AF prolly just went with the red tops cuz they're the cheaper.

Don't know if you've already bought or not but Sam's club has been the cheapest place i've found to get a red top from, $130-$140ish. Everywhere else i've looked its $190-$200. Anyone know a better place to get an Optima?

 

[dougmcp]

I agree that Optimas were a very good battery but things have changed. About 3 years ago Optima was sold to Johnson Controls which is why Sam's carry them. When they were purchased by Johnson Controls, the manufacturing was moved to Mexico and they have gone downhill ever since.
There are plenty of horror stories about Optimas in the last few years, google it or go to Amazon and read the comments.
The RT battery is a starting battery, the YT is a heavier duty RT and the BT is a dual start/deep cycle that is not a true deep cycle battery. The Blue top is a close to a deep cycle as you can get from them and would be the only one that would be suitable for inverter use.
In reality the AF buys batteries from whoever is on the GSA list of approved suppliers and if they were looking for an AGM battery, the Optimas may have been their only choice. I don''t have that list so that is pure speculation on my part.

 

[Thermo]

Like is being mentioned, the Optimas only have 1 advantage over other batteries and that is the ability to be mounted in many different orientations. All other batteries need to be mounted with the top of the battery facing up. Beyond that, no real advantage. Actually, even if the quality was on par with other batteries, the specs for the Optimas would make me stay away from them. You have tons more stored energy in a conventional lead acid battery than in the spiral Optima battery.

I know a thing or two about batteries. I used to work around one that was capable of powering a small town. Gotta love a battery with a steady state rating of over 10,000 amps. Just a little power you understand. But, that was the backup power on the submarine for the nuclear reactor.

 

[kgreenjinx]

Good discussion going on. So now I am getting a little confused here. How critical is a deep cycle if power will be shut off 10 minutes after engine is killed?

 

[dougmcp]

True deep cycle batteries have fewer heavy plates with lots of lead on them and have a better ability to be cycled deeply and recharged without affecting their lifespan. Starting batteries have lots of thin plates that will give a great burst of power but do not recover well from deep discharges.
A full charge on a 12v battery is 12.73v and a deep discharge is considered to be about 80% which is 11.66v.
Deep cycle batteries are never rated in cranking amps but in amp hours at a certain discharge rate.
You can buy a 12v deep cycle battery from manufacturers like Trojan (T-1275) or US Battery (US 12V XC) that a rated at about 270 minutes at 25amps or 90 minutes at 55amps.
A 2000w inverter if used to it's max output uses 160 amps.
Even if you use an inverter at only 1/2 of it's rated output (80 amps) you would get less than an hour out of it before it shut down in the low voltage mode.

 

[markanthony]

I have ran optima for years, with NO problems. The red top has lasted bout 8 years with a small stereo ( 400 Watts ) being discharged and recharged many times with out an issue. I have not upgraded to yellow tops in all my cars as old red tops go out after years of use. I do agree that they have gone down hill in quality.

In my wife's old Cherokee with a three year old battery, survived a good impact. The lights were left on for four days, the keys were in the run position. Took out the red top and put it in her new car. We had a little issue with it discharging over a few hours. Can not say if it was battery age or the accident.

 

[Thermo]

Jinx, what you ask has a lot of variables as I see it. Personally, I tend to overdesign things. So, I am going a little conservative here. But, a starting battery is just that, good for starting the truck and nothing else. If you are discharging it, you have other issues. I like to think of the starting battery as my garantee to go home after the day. Would it make sense to have only 1 battery in the truck, run some big things off of the battery that will lead to its draining to only not be able to start the truck to go home? Hence why you will find that I am a big advocate of dual battery setups if you are planning on lots of use of battery power only. if the engine is running, then the batteries are not an issue since they are there only for large current surges (if you are hitting this point, then you need a larger alternator).

As for survivability from discharges, starting batteries will handle minor discharges (less than 20% of capacity) with relative ease. But, you start going much more than that and you can plan on the battery having a shortened life span. Will it do it. Of course. But, how often do you want to be replacing batteries? Ironically, if you have a deep cycle (a battery meant to be cycled between full and zero capacity over and over), if you don't cycle it, you can ruin it. They require a deep discharge atleast monthly to maintain their health. Will they survive without these deep discharges. Sure. But, you are again shortening their lives by not discharging them.

If you are interested in trying to figure out the amount of discharging you would be doing, let me know. I would just need to know the wattage rating of some of your typical components and then I can give you how to figure it out. If you know how to figure out amp-hours, then you can figure this out yourself.

I don't want to go in way over your head, but sometimes what appear to be a good idea can be done other ways cheaper or must be done a very specific way to garantee you get what you are after.