Who knew???????
Thread Starter
50 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 342
cold calling on my rounds yesterday, i happened to stumble upon a battery manufacturer. while i was trying to sell him stuff, i began asking him about different types of batteries. during our q&a session, i stumbled upon a bit of info i thought everyone should know.
we all know there are three basic types of batts that serve our purposes. lead acid, gel cell, and absorbed glass matt. lead acid sucks for for our systems and need to be vented if they are inside our vehicles, yuck. gel cell has been the battery of choice for most of us, and there have been many threads started on this and other forums, where we have all stood on our soapbox ans shouted to the heavens that nothing shy of sliced bread could ever be better. absorbed glass matt i have heard of in the past but don't know anyone who has ever used one in a car audio system.
here's the other shoe. what i found out is something i never knew, and a very reputable shop <name not used> in c-town who sells optima, could not even find out about from optima themselves.
if your charging system is running over 14.2 volts you are destroying your gel cell. thats right. tearing it up. what the owner of this co. was telling me is to check the gell cell for wrinkles or warps on the top or side of the battery. if they are there then you are drying out the cells. most of us, i may be wrong on this, are trying to run 14.4v in order to get the most out of our amps. if you are then you had better switch to a glass matt battery.
if anyone has any other info they could share on this i would appreciate hearing about it. this is the first info of this sort i ever got. i will try to scan the spec sheets i got yesterday as soon as possible, but i looked at the specs for optima and exide in this guys office, and what i saw told me not run gel cells anymore. the peak charge voltage for the glass matt was 14.6v. any body knows any different let me know. [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]
we all know there are three basic types of batts that serve our purposes. lead acid, gel cell, and absorbed glass matt. lead acid sucks for for our systems and need to be vented if they are inside our vehicles, yuck. gel cell has been the battery of choice for most of us, and there have been many threads started on this and other forums, where we have all stood on our soapbox ans shouted to the heavens that nothing shy of sliced bread could ever be better. absorbed glass matt i have heard of in the past but don't know anyone who has ever used one in a car audio system.
here's the other shoe. what i found out is something i never knew, and a very reputable shop <name not used> in c-town who sells optima, could not even find out about from optima themselves.
if your charging system is running over 14.2 volts you are destroying your gel cell. thats right. tearing it up. what the owner of this co. was telling me is to check the gell cell for wrinkles or warps on the top or side of the battery. if they are there then you are drying out the cells. most of us, i may be wrong on this, are trying to run 14.4v in order to get the most out of our amps. if you are then you had better switch to a glass matt battery.
if anyone has any other info they could share on this i would appreciate hearing about it. this is the first info of this sort i ever got. i will try to scan the spec sheets i got yesterday as soon as possible, but i looked at the specs for optima and exide in this guys office, and what i saw told me not run gel cells anymore. the peak charge voltage for the glass matt was 14.6v. any body knows any different let me know. [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]
Thread Starter
50 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 342
the one i have looked at is built by East Penn Manufacturing. the model i saw is called DEKA. mainly they are used in electric wheelchairs because of the abuse they can take between chargings. ie. running the voltage low without harm, long periods without use. and very rapid discharges at times. they also have a variety of terminals which will allow easier connection to larger gauge wire. he was telling me that a lot of the guys running pumps on they're rides in cali are switching batts now. like i said i'll try to scan these spec sheets tomorrow. [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]
