Hi tplife,
First of all, in my opinion, no serious boondocker would use a group 24 battery, unless they had NO choice.
Here are some figures from the wobbly wide web:
Lifeline group 24 is 80 amp-hours and 149 minutes of reserve capacity.
Optima group D-31M is 75 amp-hours and 155 minutes of reserve capacity. (and it is NOT a group 24 btw, hence the 31 in the name).
Lifeline group 31 is 105 amp-hours and 225 minutes of reserve capacity.
It appears to me, from the data above, that the Lifeline group 24 is more or less the equivalent of the D-31M Optima, and that the group 31 Lifeline cleans the Optima's clock.
P.S. Seriously cold boondocking 5 days @ a daily high of -27 C (-16.6 F) with three hours of generator time per day in blizzard conditions so solar was of no use.
tplife wrote:
Quote by Pianotuna:
"Generally speaking, Optima are not as high a capacity in amp-hours "regular" AGM units such as Lifeline."
Yes, if you're comparing apples to oranges. Optima sells a group 24 Blue-top, the D-31M, in 75 Ah, and besides being less expensive, it has more reserve capacity than the Lifeline GPL-24T. I'm not that familiar with Lifeline, but I know that Optima makes more models than just the one I have.
