[CMichels35]

Want people's opinion, what's better ya 20AMP DC to DC charger charging a Optima D34 Yellow Top or the Redarc Smart Isolator?
I'm undecided on what to get, I will be running my 50L CFX Waeco and in the future a winch off the D34

[jordan00191]

Redarc make good gear, but the best dual battery management system I have come across tested and seen tortured, is a simple kit off of eBay using a Narva isolater and comes with all the wiring you need for $100. Its really simple. Your ignition turns on, your two batteries charge as one big battery. Your ignition is off, your batteries separate as independent batteries so you cannot discharge your start battery.

I have also seen people put manual isolator switches on the auxilary battery positive wiring of the isolator so that they can manually disconnect the auxilary battery even if ignition is on so that they can run they're uhf, radios, or work lights without draining the start battery. (Auto elec by trade).

Oh and just to add, you can buy the Narva isolator from any repco or super cheap as a spare part so if your out bush and it fails, undo 2 bolts and the 3 wiring screws rip it out and replace it. They cost about $45 alone. Good to have something you can easily repair or replace anywhere. Redarc products generally need to be ordered.

[laurie]

Same sort of system i use but mine is home made using a solenoid and some truck jumper leads cost about $70 + battery . ignition on two batteries connected . ignition off they are separate
mine is for engel , lights , power sockets and winch . ebay kit sounds like it could be a good buy .

[jordan00191]

Yeah the eBay kit I saw was really good. Everything was pre crimped and soldered, it was a literal bolt on kit. No messing about. Good for those learning in auto electrics.

[murcod]

CMichels35 wrote:

Want people's opinion, what's better ya 20AMP DC to DC charger charging a Optima D34 Yellow Top or the Redarc Smart Isolator?
I'm undecided on what to get, I will be running my 50L CFX Waeco and in the future a winch off the D34

The DC to DC charger will be kinder to your Optima (ie. should fully charge it correctly, so it should last longer) and will also compensate for voltage losses through the cabling.

[Mike57]

Definitely something like the CTEK 250S dual 20 amp DC to DC smart charger will charge your secondary battery properly particularly if it is an AGM. In fact it will be better maintained than your main battery. It also has a solar input which I use to keep both the main and secondary batteries charged when the car is not being used (solar input will charge both batteries with the CTEK). They are more expensive but are the ideal approach if you have the money. An AGM battery requires a higher voltage to charge properly than your Jimny charging system will deliver.

[murcod]

I've got some 12V AGM batteries that only like 14.2V max voltage when absorb charging- so it pays to sometimes check. The details for the D34 Yellow Top are here http://www.optimabatteries.com.au/wp-co ... lowTop.pdf they've got a pretty wide tolerance.

I've been running a Red Top in my Kizashi as the starter battery. They're made in Mexico (or somewhere similar now) but it still seems to be decent enough quality. Not having a leaky (over filled cells - thanks Suzuki) OEM battery was my highest priority at the time.

[fordem]

Unless you're planning to use two IDENTICAL batteries - identical in chemistry, capacity & age - you'll be better off with the DC-DC charger. All the smart isolator will do for you is parallel the batteries under certain specific conditions, and the end result of paralleling batteries that are not identical is reduced battery life.

It should also be noted that even if the batteries are identical, if they are used separately to perform different tasks, as in one used solely for starting and the other for "cycling" - such as the proposed fridge - they will age at different rates, and you will be back to square one in that they will no longer be identical.

It should also be noted that cranking batteries should not be used for "cycling" service, deep cycle batteries should not be used for cranking or winching - either scenario reduces battery life.

[got_bar_work]

Use the dc to dc charger and put a bypass through a solenoid that comes on with a winch isolator.

[Marck]

its a long answer sorry

The redarc gear is solid but I personally think you pay a little to much for it. At double to 4 times the price of other products it's a stretch for me. But there gear is solid and will take what you throw at it no doubt.

I used the ctek d250s on my camper trailer. Good little box with solar input also so will pick best source to charge but it's not a great solar reg I found it to be a little inefficient on solar but a good DC DC charger. It will defiantly be kinder to your battery and as stated above if you have different batteries you will have issues in the long run if you go straight Voltage Sencitive Relay. If you go down the VSR route have a look at intervolt. You can program the cut in voltages and on some of them you can manually switch them to parallel your batteries for things like winching and assisted starting if you run your starting batterie down. I think it's 150 amps maybe 200 from memory if that's enough current for your needs but they where around the $200 mark.

One other thing to think about is with VSR \ smart relay is if your secondary battery fails you can end up with a flat starting battery with all the charge current being eaten by the faulty second battery. I have seen this twice this year with the redarc smart relays using standard flooded batteries. Maybe a good DC DC would see the fault and shut down ? I know the ctek stuff needs to see a certain voltage on the second battery before it will provide charge current I can't remember what that voltage is from memory.

The other thing to think about is if you can put your batteries on a good charger you can avoid DC DC chargers and manually bring the batteries to float voltage. Some of the better VSR's can also detect when your secondary battery is being charged and once at float voltage will allow the primary battery to recive a charge voltage. I think ennerdrive which are about 100 bucks will do this. You will find this will extend the life of your starter battery a bit to.

If it was me and my zook isn't a daily driver I would go the intervolt and use my little 5 amp ctek when it's sitting at home to keep both batteries healthy. I just think less complex electronics in the system might be a little more reliable on the road.

If it's a daily I'd go DC DC and large solid state winch relay like suggested by got bar work to be able to parallel the batteries you could use the intervolt product for this but it might be a bit expensive compared to a straight relay.

Just check with whoever you get the DC DC charger from if it will Handel having a parallele bypass if you do the above.


Also with your AGM check how they handle heat some / most don't like getting hot some recommended against engine bay mounting.


If you treat your battery well with temp and charge behaviour it will probably extend its life by a third to double compared to flogging it all the time. So good battery management can pay for itself if you spend big on your batteries.

Marc

[ZUZUKI]

** Bias Alert **
I work at Piranha Offroad Products & we make dual battery stuff, including isolators.
This can be an involved subject & while lots of people 'get away with' using soleniods (Redarc 'Smart' & others), manual switches etc, is it as good as it could be & is it recommended for a modern car? - no.
An Optima is the best cranking battery you'll buy, but not so good as a deep cycle (copes ok, just doesn't store as much as other options)
It is an AGM - will 'fight' the wet cell cranking batt. for charge if you just parallel them.
An AGM is what you need to be using if you are putting the aux. batt. inside the car (unless you seal a battery enclosure to the interior, but vent that enclosure to the outside). A flat plate AGM will store more energy (110A/h), but is heavy (32kg), hates heat & typically available in 12" upwards case size, where the D34 is a 10" & will cope ok in an engine bay, but stores 55A/h.
AGM batts. typically want to see a charge rate over 14.2V.
A DC/DC is a good idea - in a caravan / camper trailer, where they were designed to be. Otherwise, they are expensive & not very efficient at using the alternators output, for what they do - if you use one, buy the biggest capacity (Redarc do a 40A/h).
A winch wants to come of the cranking battery.
The less connections your electrical system has, the more efficient & reliable it will be.
Having said that, no isolators are good at allowing cranking from the aux. if the main is flat, or to help out for winching (some do it, & in a Jimny, it won't be a problem for their typical 100A rating) - a 'red key' type switch to manually link the batteries in an emergency, is the better way.
A CFX50 is a big fridge, in a little car!.
Solar input via an isolator is over rated & over complicated for most applications.
A good idea, as per Marc, to put the batteries on a decent 240V A/C charger every now & then.
A deep cycle batt. will cope better with occasional cranking / winching load, than a cranking batt. will cope with being 'deep cycled'.
"ebay" "$100" (basic) "Narva isolator" + diy installation - the stuff our nightmares are made of.
Rgs, Michael

[CMichels35]

Thanks guys,it's a good bit of information
Michael it'll be in the engine bay, so I can fit a large 100ah or AGM battery as they don't fit and won't like heat, as it being basically next to the headers I've gone for the D34 winch will be added at a later date and will eventually upgrade the starter battery and do a red key switch to connect the batteries in a emergency

[Marck]

Thinking back over it I agree with zuzuki with just using a key switch to join batteries simple and cheep. But you don't get to throw money at gadgets.

As for the efficiency of the DC DC I found the ctek to go alright. I measured input and output current and found you had about a 10 ish percent conversin loss. Not to bad for a consumer level product. But as I said if I did it again I'd go stand alone solar reg.

I think with this one it will come down to how much money you want to throw at it. Be it 10 bucks or 2000 you can spend it playing with power control and batteries.

Only other thing I forgot to throw in is make sure your cable sizing is right. When I did the calculations quite a few of the cheaper kits use inadequate cable and can end up with a large voltage drop. If your alternator can make 14.4v and your agm wants a minimum of 14.2v with some of the kits you could see almost .5 volt drop this will stop your aux battery reaching a fully charged state.

Ok time for me to turn of the nerd.

Marc

[fordem]

Marck wrote:

As for the efficiency of the DC DC I found the ctek to go alright. I measured input and output current and found you had about a 10 ish percent conversin loss. Not to bad for a consumer level product.

Did you look at the voltages or just the current?

Quote:

Only other thing I forgot to throw in is make sure your cable sizing is right. When I did the calculations quite a few of the cheaper kits use inadequate cable and can end up with a large voltage drop. If your alternator can make 14.4v and your agm wants a minimum of 14.2v with some of the kits you could see almost .5 volt drop this will stop your aux battery reaching a fully charged state.

Battery charging is nowhere near as straight forward as many people think it is - the charge rate (which, by the way, is measured in amperes, and not volts, as suggested by someone else), is primarily determined by the battery's state of charge, assuming that sufficient current is available, at an appropriate voltage. Although the intent is to recharge the battery as rapidly as possible, proper control of the charge rate is important as high charge rates can negatively impact battery life, and in extreme cases, destroy the battery or result in fires.

The norm with most "intelligent" chargers is to current limit during the first phase of charging (commonly known as "bulk" charge), as the name suggests, the battery receives the "bulk" of the charge during this phase - terminal voltage is monitored, and when it reaches a pre-set level, indicating typically around an 80% charge, the charger should switch to the second phase (commonly known as "float" charge), during which the charger will limit the voltage, or attempt to hold or regulate the voltage to a specific level determined by the battery chemistry - the reason I use the word "attempt" is because the actual voltage will be determined by the battery's state of charge - as the battery approaches a full charge, the voltage will rise, until it reaches the limit defined by the charger, at which point the battery "floats", neither charging nor discharging.

Vehicle alternators are typically capable of delivering in excess of 15V, although you will seldom see this in practice, not because of the voltage regulator, but because the battery in the vehicle is rarely, if ever, fully charged. Vehicle charging systems are very crude "bulk" charge systems with the current limit set by the design engineers - essentially the difference between the vehicle's electrical requirements, and the alternator output - the charge rate is essentially determined by the battery itself, based on it's state of charge - it will charge as fast as the available current allows and the system voltage will be dictated by the battery's state of charge.

This is where the problem arises with dual battery systems using solenoid or relay style isolators - the system voltage is going to be determined by a number of constantly changing factors - alternator output, electrical load and the primary battery state of charge (the third by the way, is itself affected by the first two) - when the relay closes to charge the second battery, the electrical load increases causing the system voltage to decrease and this can have all sorts of unanticipated and frequently undesirable effects, for example, relay chatter, and yes, it is possible to have the primary battery discharging into the secondary battery - this is what has led to the so called "intelligent" isolators - they are designed to prevent (or reduce) these side effects, but they cannot change one basic fact, that the charge rate for the second battery is going to be dictated by the system voltage and not the battery state of charge as it should be.

The big difference between a solenoid or relay style isolator and a DC~DC charger is that the isolator cannot deliver an output voltage higher than that at the input - DC~DC chargers can - when you looked at the input & output currents, the output current would most likely have been dictated primarily by the battery's state of charge (although it could also have been limited by the DC~DC charger capacity), either because it was in the current limited "bulk charge" phase, which is governed by state of charge, or because it was in the float phase, where the battery itself determines the rate - the input current would have been whatever the charger needed to deliver the output, input current will typically be more than the output current, not just because of conversion efficiency, but also because the input & output voltages are typically never the same - any consideration of efficiency MUST look at both the voltage & current on both sides.

One of the advantage (or side effects) of a DC~DC charger is that because it has the ability to increase the voltage at the output, voltage drop at the input is less of a concern, and a half a volt drop in the wiring will have little effect on the charger's ability to bring the battery to full charge - provided the charger is allowed to run long enough, it will charge the battery completely. Voltage drop in the wiring becomes an issue of "system efficiency" and can, within reason, be ignored.

[ZUZUKI]

fordem - you know your stuff.
As I said & you confirm, electrics is an often misunderstood & simplified by the average 4WDriver.
You are right, Amps is the charge rate that makes a battery charge, but I tried to keep my reply shirt(ish) & understandable(ish)- it is a topic that could consume pages & pages.
Volts is the pressure pushing the amps into the battery (again, a simplification....)
An AGM battery wants a higher charge rate than a wet cell battery, because the chemical reaction is harder to activate in the paste electrolyte, rather than the liquid of a wet cell.
In all honesty, we haven't asked enough questions of the original poster, to determine what the best solution for his application is.
For most Suzuki owners, the best solution to 'refrigeration' is esky & ice, as typically, a Suzuki is not going to be used as a touring vehicle (touring being weeks on the road, in remotish areas - not a weekend).
Even if you find room for a 12V fridge, a 'total loss' method of powering it might be the best option - ie, use a flat plate AGM battery of around the 110A/h mark, keep it on trickle charge at home, load it & the fridge into the car for your weekend/long weekend trip, run the fridge for that 2-3 days (which should be possible from 110A/h with careful management) by which time the battery will be flat, return home, put the battery on a decent (10amp+) multi stage 240V battery charger & get ready to do it all again the next weekend.

In a touring vehicle, the typical use needs to be taken into account. A DC/DC charge has it's limitations in the amount of amps put into the battery - admittedly at higher voltage. They work, in effect, by 'burning up amperage' to create higher voltage, with lower amp output.
Amperage, we have determined above, is what the battery stores & uses to power devices - like a fridge.
A vehicles alternator these days is typically rated over 100Amps. If the car is cruising down the road with minimal electrical load (A/C off, heater/s off etc) then the car will only be requiring around 30amps to run itself, with, in this scenario 70amps of 'spare capacity' from the alternator, that could go into a battery/ies - if they were discharged enough to take it.
If you buy a Redarc BC/DC in 20 amp capacity, or CTek D250S (25amp), your battery sees 20-25amps of the 70ish it potentially could use - and that's when the DC/DC device is cold.
Try this is this scenario: You take your new 200 series Land-Cruiser V8 Diesel somewhere to have a aux. battery system installed - they have twin cranking batts. from the factory - Piranha & others make a '3rd battery tray' - fits up in the P/S/R of the engine bay - space is restricted & there are computers, wiring etc in that area, so a fully sealed (not quite, but for simplicity's sake, lets call it so) Optima is the go, but the D34 is rated at 55amps, not huge, but 'enough' for most people, most of the time. You choose a Redarc 20amp BC/DC management unit, which cost you over $500, because the 40 amp unit costs $750. All good. We do need to boost the voltage up, as the Toyota range of 4WD vehicles produce 13.6-13.7V on stock form - enough to keep a wet cell happy, but not an AGM. - there are other ways to overcome this particular issue.
You tour - 2 days in 1 location, off grid - no 240V power (your fridge has sucked most, if not all, of the 55amps by then), you drive 4-5 hours to the next spot, where you also camp for 2 days, but your fridge cuts out after 1 & you wonder why?
Because the DC/DC only delivered 20amps/h in to a substantially discharged battery, which made it work hard, so it got hot, reduced it's output down to 17amps, didn't fully charge the battery, before you stopped to camp again.
If you had a 2nd aux. battery in a box in the cargo area, you split that charge in half - each battery is getting 9amps! - upgrade to the 40amp charger is a start!.
A DC/DC is a good (expensive) piece of kit, but is not the best solution for all people all the time. If you spend a bit of time driving most days, have solar panels etc, you probably won't find it's limitations, which are earlier point in time than other management devices. But, as fordem says, devices other than DC/DCs won't pick up voltage.
If you use a wet cell deep cycle batt. - almost never a requirement to use a DC/DC, as it doesn't need the higher voltage an AGM does. (unless you have this great big 200 series, for towing a great big caravan, which has a couple of 'house' batteries, 10meters from the alternator - in which case, that is what DC/DCs where originally designed for - next to the batteries, as good as you can hope for - just find 240V every now & then to top them up!.

CMichels35 - if the voltage charge rate is over 14.2V a DC/DC is not required. What I have done in my own car - might be possible for you. I use an Optima D34 sized red top, on it's side (can do that no probs.), in a custom tray I made, as the cranking batt. then used the original battery location (again, with some customization) to hold a 12" case wet cell deep cycle (95A/h).
Optima = fantastic cranking, wet cell = best bang for buck deep cycle - a 10" wet cell will give you 85ish amps for a bit over $200. D34 Optima will give you 55a/h for around $250.
The spiral cell shape (looks like a 6pack of cans) allows an Optima to dissipate heat acceptably - under bonnet is not ideal for an AGM, but in practice, an Optima copes ok.
Management unit is a Piranha DBE140SF - can flow 140amps of current into a aux. battery/ies - if they could take it. RRP is $185. Dead easy to install & wire up (have you looked at DC/DC wiring?) Cable kit, using 10m2 double insulated, automotive cable is $60 for the shortest 3m version - still need to cut cables to length & correctly crimp the (supplied) lugs, then heat shrink (supplied) - also includes battery terminals & earth strap.
I don't mean that as a plug - just what I have done in my car, that I feel is as good as a solution as I can acheive, which might be applicable to your situation. It powers an Evacool RF47 + lights etc. We took our GV on a slow lap (2 years on the road, with a 3yo. at the start) of Aust. 10 years ago. The current set up is a refinement & has much better capacity than the version we used then.
Good luck with it.
Rgs, Michael

[got_bar_work]

If u r wiring up this stuff with a winch in the system i wouldn't be using a tiny 10mm2 cable. I would be using 35mm2 cable. 10mm is only good for 50a. Some of The runva winchs recomend 70mm2.
If u are r staying at a camp for more then a day with out driving i would be getting a solar panel. U will never fit enough batt storage in a zook with out deep cycling the batt to much will kill it real quick. U should not go below half capacity on a batt to much and the max u should go to is 20% any lower and u r realy decreasing the life of it.

[ZUZUKI]

I agree 10mm2 is too light for a winch, but is fine for charging an aux. battery, where the spare alternator capacity to charge that aux. battery is in the region of 70amps (assuming like we were previously that we have a 100amp alternator, in a modern car - from what I gather, the Jimny has a 70amp alternator to start with, meant something like a 50amp max. current going into the battery) which the battery would only accept if it was really discharged.
The winch should come directly off the cranking battery, with as big as cables as supplied (by the winch maker) or practicable, in a short as run as possible.
A H/D key switch (200amps constant rating is about all that is practicable, any higher rating & they get very big & bulky) using similar sized cable to what was supplied with the winch to manually link the batteries, for winch assistance only, is not a bad idea - it will extend the time you can winch for, bearing in mind, that factors like load on the winch, winch motor size, friction & winch gearing could see a 400amp load (generally not in a Suzuki situation, unless something is seriously wrong), which the alternator can only replace at the rate of 70amps or so (or, 50amps or so in a Jimny).

The Runva winch range seems to be a decent which for reasonably little money, however, most of their winches are supplied with a 'power isolating switch' (red key switch) that they say needs to go between the battery + & the main power cable for the winch motor - they don't specify the capacity of this switch, but I would suggest it is well under the capacity of the cables, introduces more connections & not a good idea to use, as they want you to use it (you could use this switch. with additional cables, as the 'winch assist' battery link though) - better to isolate the winch via the contactor pack / control box wiring, given that most of the bullbars in Aust. severely restrict access to the motor & wiring. The only issue then, is being in an accident, where a big constant live cable could get shorted out. If you're that concerned about it, buy another contactor pack (commonly available up to 600amp rating) to use as an isolator.

Agree that a solar panel out in the sun, as soon as you arrive at a spot you would be staying at for more than a day is a great idea, but then it wants to be 60Watt or more, to be useful, which starts getting bigish & bulky to fit in a Zook - maybe on a roof rack, but that is a another whole topic of debate!.

Rgs, Michael

[shep]

I have a 60amp cheap deep cycle in my jimny with a redarc VSR isolator and even in NT heat it keeps my 40L engle at 0deg for 3 days without draining the battery past 12.0v. If an extra 5% capacity is worth $500 to you then fit a dc dc charger.

[shep]

I have the same setup in my other car and it charges 1 cranking battery and 3 deep cycle battery's and does so with out a issue

[DC3PTIKON]

shep wrote:

I have a 60amp cheap deep cycle in my jimny with a redarc VSR isolator and even in NT heat it keeps my 40L engle at 0deg for 3 days without draining the battery past 12.0v. If an extra 5% capacity is worth $500 to you then fit a dc dc charger.

Agreed!

I have a dual battery system set up in my personal work van. A $80 140a VSR connected from my starting calcuim battery to a 100ah AGM with Andersons just behind the drivers seat, with a pre-terminated 6m cable. The battery runs a 80L compressor fridge, electric oven, tool battery chargers, and a 240v invertor. I switch the fridge on for work Monday morning, and stays on all week until home Friday night, so running around 100 hours a week. The oven, chargers and invertor are only switched on as needed. I bought the van new and installed the system the day I got it home, so this set up has now seen 112,000kms this March will make 5 years of use on that same system, and I have not one issue or have I had to touch it. No DC-DC or anything fancy. It cost me around $400 all up to do, and still works as well as the day I fitted it. Not too bad for around 28,000 hours of use and still going strong!

I bench tested this set up before I installed it. With a pre cooled full fridge sitting in my non insulated shed during summer I got 4 and half days of use before the fridges low voltage cut off kicked in. I had a power meter hooked in parallel to the system while testing so had total amps used, watts etc, but have lost the readings I wrote down.

I have the same set up into my SWB Vitara with my new battery box. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=49787
But with the battery behind the back seat.

[Chop]

Im running a redarc smart isolator and optima yellowtop d34. Its been going strong for years. My fridge is on all the time, I would only encounter low battery if my car didn't move for 3 days.

[shep]

My work car is set up the same as my jimny but with a 100amp battery. Runs a engel continuously as well as 4 x 25w vhf radios and a digital radio. Never turn any of it off. Never have a flat battery. Sometimes I only drive 200km a week.

[fordem]

There seems to be some confusion surrounding the term "battery life" - as in "reduced battery life" - it can be interpreted in two ways - and the way I am seeing it interpreted in the last few posts is "how long will a single charge last" or "how often does the battery need to be charged" - this is actually an issue of capacity and usage.

The second interpretation, and this is the one that is affected when batteries of different capacities & chemistries are interconnected - is how long does the battery itself last - or in simpler terms - how often do you have to replace the battery - THIS is what is defined as battery life.

[DC3PTIKON]

fordem wrote:

There seems to be some confusion surrounding the term "battery life" - as in "reduced battery life" - it can be interpreted in two ways - and the way I am seeing it interpreted in the last few posts is "how long will a single charge last" or "how often does the battery need to be charged" - this is actually an issue of capacity and usage.

The second interpretation, and this is the one that is affected when batteries of different capacities & chemistries are interconnected - is how long does the battery itself last - or in simpler terms - how often do you have to replace the battery - THIS is what is defined as battery life.

Well put!

That's why I gave both the time my battery has been in service (around 28,000 hours total use/58 months old), and the run time when in use (around 4.5 days) to illustrate that a basic system with different chemistries can in fact work well and perform for many years.

[shep]

I buy cheap deep cycle battery's ie 1/4 the price of optma battery's that have a 40 month warrenty and they last longer then that.

[DC3PTIKON]

That's what I did. Bought a Ritar 100ah AGM for around $200 in 2011. Came with 1 year warranty, but has never faulted to this day. I also fitted 2 gauges, one for vehicle system voltage and one that shows the aux battery voltage. A good way to gauge to state of charge of the aux battery.

If I'm doing an overnighter with the Vitara I dont even take the aux battery. I made up an Anderson to cigarette lighter adaptor and plug the fridge straight into where I would normally plug the aux battery. I then hit the VSR override so the start battery is now connected and the fridge is on. As long as the fridge is already cold (which it is from the long drive there) and the fridge low voltage cut off is set correctly there's no dramas at all and it works perfectly. I have used this many a time, even while running 2 x 18w LED works lights for camp lighting for 4-6 hours. No drama starting the next day, even after 24 hours of the fridge going. Of course before I did this I checked the amp draw test with a power meter to make sure the start battery would not be over discharged during bench testing, and there was plenty of room to play with. The fridge is very efficient once cool.

Also I think a good way to stop the 'battery life' confusion is to add a word and refer to them as -

'Battery Life' - The duration of use under load before the battery needs recharging.

'Battery Service Life' - The total duration of use before the battery becomes unserviceable/no longer will accept charge and needs to be replaced.

[ZUZUKI]

I suppose I get a biased view at work, because we get people coming to us with systems that don't work very effectively, or meet the owners needs, so we have to sort them out & make them as best as we can.
If people have a set-up they are happy with, we would not get to work on it.
We have seen systems like those described above not meet their owners expectations & some of the above shouldn't be possible - in theory, but if in practice, it is working for you, then it is working for you.
Professionally installed, a dual battery set-up will cost around $1400 RRP, for the average install, into an average car (Hilux, Pajero, Prado etc) which I understand is not where the average Zook owner is at.
Rgs, Michael V - working at Piranha

[shep]

holy crap, people are to eager to spend money. Have a mate that has spent the last 25 years in Darwin removing failed
expensive systems and installing simple systems as they survive better. Our fleet of around 150 landcruisers all use redarc VSR
solonoids and I have only heard of one failing.

[got_bar_work]

Does any one know of any batteries that can be deep cycled and have high cca to run a winch. Lithium is the only one i know and im not spending that much on a zook.

[fordem]

got_bar_work wrote:

Does any one know of any batteries that can be deep cycled and have high cca to run a winch.

To the best of my knowledge the two are mutually exclusive, at least as far as lead acid battery technology goes - deep cycle batteries have fewer, thicker plates, as the batteries are charged & discharged these plates expand & contract; high amperage current delivery requires a larger surface area exposed to the electrolyte and this is typically achieved through the use of a larger number of thinner, more fragile plates; however, if this type of construction is used in a battery designed for cycling service, the thinner plates "buckle" more easily, shedding the active material, which results in a loss of capacity and can eventually "short circuit" a cell.

Yes - there are batteries that are advertised as capable of both tasks, these are a compromised design that can be used for both purposes, but is good at neither task. Look for a marine battery supplier - they will have batteries that can be used for engine starting purposes, and also as "house" batteries for lighting and other purposes after the engines have been shut down.