Best deep cycle ?

tplife wrote:
I read that a flooded battery's #1 killer is vibration, the primary reason AGMs outlast flooded batteries and are the choice of the military. I also considered flooded batteries for my application, but my research provided so many good reasons why the extra money I paid was more than worth the price difference...and no more holes in my jeans or hydrometer readings! :)

There is a line I use when talking about OPTIMA batteries. (Which by the way are AGM)

If you are slamming over ruts, ditches, rocks, logs and such with your ATV,, OPTIMA may be a very good choice (Or waves with a wave runner).

But if you are driving your motor home or towing your trailer that way.. Batteries are NOT going to be your primary problem..

This applies here.. Yes, serious extreme vibration such as you get running over land mines, IEDs. and dodging shells... Yup, that might damage a flooded wet cell. Plus see true story below.

Driving down the highway in your 30 foot house... Not so much.

My mother worked for a military supplier of liquid storage and transport hardware (LOX tanks to be exact, they also use 'em for JET fuel).. This company makes some of the (if not THE) Best LOX tanks in the world, The military tests them by the B-52 method.. Load 'em up, fill 'em with a non-reactive gas (Helium) and drop 'em onto a concrete pad as you fly over.. If they don't leak, re-load and fly higher, And when you have just one tank still holding Helium.. That's who gets the bid.. The company my mother worked for.. Got a lot of bids.

Well a general shows up and asks if the Army was getting 2nds on hoses, cause the hoses supplied the military were not lasting as long as the identical hose at say Air Reduction Company. (NOTE the use of Identical). The quality control guy took the General out and handed him a hose, and a sledge hammer, The general chipped some concrete out of the floor of the warehouse by swinging the hose and banging the threaded end against it, He hammered on it hard as he could,, And then the QC guy took it over to a tank and hooked it up, No problem, No damage.

He then explained the difference between a well paid employee of ARCO who would get fired if he left the hose on the ground and ran over it with a jeep instead of putting it in the hooks provided on the tank.

And a basically unpaid private or airman who leaves it on the pavement and runs over it with the jeep.

How this applies to batteries.

I own the batteries in my house, I'm not going to toss 'em around like the aforementioned private.