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Battery Comments
 

Having been an electronics technician in the US Navy for 8 years and then teaching electronics and RF communications for a college for almost 6 years and having held a ham radio license for over 25 years, I pretty much can work my way through a DC circuit.  As such, I end up fielding a fair share of questions about batteries and electrical hook-ups for vehicles.  As you may or may not know, I run an Optima Yellow Top battery in Lady.  I am probably biased towards the Optima, but I've had no problems with them and I've not ran into any Jeepers with that bright yellow battery hiding under the hood who have had anything bad to say about it.  So hey....why not go with a proven product, right?
 

I was asked why I chose the Yellow Top instead of some other brand.  This was my response to the person, who was commenting about the CCA rating of some autoparts chain store battery. 

• Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) are not the only noteworthy property of a battery. Along with this is the amp hour (AH) rating of a battery.  This comes into play when you want to do a much lower current draw for a long period of  time....which in my case would be running my ham radio gear while out camping with my TJ. Many batteries on the market have a high CCA rating, meaning they can dump a LOT of current in a very short period of time.....but some of those do not have a high AH rating....so the source of power they can draw on is limited. 
  
• I don't know if the battery you are speaking of is a dry or wet cell battery. The Optimas are dry (and so are some made by other companies) which makes them ideal for a roll over situation.....they don't leak acid onto your vehicle...nuff said. The plates do not vibrate and short together because they are wound tightly together with a glass matt material that acts as the gelled electrolyte holder. Since the plates can't short from vibration, the chances of a failure from this common problem is greatly reduced. 
  
• The Yellow Top Optima is specifically designed as both a SLI (starter, lights, and ignition) and a deep cycle battery. The "deep cycle" term used in Optima's vocabulary means it is designed for deep discharges at HIGH current draws....say, around a 400 amp draw from a good winching effort. (this is not to be confused with deep cycle RV/fishing boat batteries that are designed for deep discharges with SMALL current draws, like that of a trolling motor) The deep cycle Yellow Top is good for around 250 deep cycle discharges. Most batteries would cook long before that....say around 50, if they made it that far. This is witnessed by anyone who forgets to turn their headlights off and completely kills their battery. On a conventional battery, you can not do that too many times before it begins taking its toll on the ability of the battery to achieve and hold a full charge. 
  
• As far as a warranty goes, I have NEVER owned a battery living in Arizona where it has survived 3 summers. Considering I have always owned 2 or 3 vehicles and I have lived here 16 years, that is a fair amount of batteries that I can base this statement on. For the past 6 years, I have been buying PepBoys 72 month warranty batteries. The last one made it exactly 14 months before it died hard and was replaced. Luckily, that one was in my wife's XJ and not my TJ.  Hers left her stranded in the church parking lot. Mine would have left me about 20 miles from the nearest road. What I am trying to say is that a warranty means nothing unless the product it is supporting really works. I can not drive my Jeep out of the desert on a warranty!  I know Jeepers that are running Optimas that are 6+ years old. Most of them usually pull them at that point, pop in a fresh one, and shuffle it off to the family car for "lighter" duty. The warranty on the Yellow Top I bought was 6 years, with the first 2 years being free replacement and prorated for the remaining four years. This is not a flame against other batteries....you asked about the Optima and why would someone decide to use it. These were a few of the reasons I opted to choose Optima.

I received an e-mail from a fellow Jeeper who read the above post.  He wrote me about his upcoming battery and winch project with questions concerning what kind of battery (Red or Yellow Top) to get and how many of them.  This was my response to him.

• The Yellow Top Optima is THE battery you want for winching. Optima will NOT warranty the Red Top when used in winching applications.
  
• What you do NOT want to do is to connect the winch to the side terminals of the Optima battery. Optima will NOT warranty that hookup. (it is not heavy duty enough) Attaching it to the TOP terminals is just fine.  I personally confirmed this with their customer service folks and posted the e-mail concerning this.  You can see the details of my winch hookup here.  You can spend a couple of $$ if you want, and change the terminals on the end of the starter cable, etc., and set it up so that your starter is connected to the side terminals and your winch is connected to the top terminals. This does make for a nice clean setup.....but it is not required in order to get everything to work properly.
  
• Having a dual setup is always nice, but not mandatory....here is why.
  
• They do NOT make an alternator (that you or I can afford) that can recharge your battery as fast as a winch can suck it dry. My TJ's heavy duty OEM alternator puts out 117 amps if everything is perfect. In reality, once it gets hot, the output normally drops by 10~20%. So....when you have a big Warn winch sucking 400+ amps from the battery and you are only putting back 100 amps, you are in a losing situation. In a perfect world (these numbers are just to show the ratio of use and are not real world numbers), you could winch for 1 minute and then you would need to charge the battery for 4 minutes to make up for what you took out. For many people, this kind of winch use method is just fine.
  
• If you had two batteries, you could winch for a longer period of time because you would have twice the battery capacity to start with. However, the alternator can still only supply 100 amps of charging current.....so, each battery would get half of that when you stopped winching and were waiting for the batteries to recharge. In the end, you could winch for twice as long, but your charging time would also be doubled. This method can also be the right setup for some people.
  
• Here is what I did in my setup. I only use my winch occasionally, and then most likely it will not turn into a "winch fest", where I would be winching 10 Jeeps over the obstacle.....if you get my drift. So.....with a single battery, I am limited to how long I can winch before the battery is severely discharged and I am going to have to let the Jeep fast idle and recharge it. BUT....this is fine for me since like I said, it would be sporadic winching at best for relatively short periods.
  
• If I regularly ran a trail(s) that had a section that required extensive winching for me, I would probably opt for a second battery. The thinking here is that I'll be able to winch for twice as long, and then I can recharge my batteries once I am through the tough section and am just crawlin' along down the wash.
  
• If I regularly ran a bunch of trails, that had LOTS of winching required, AND I was a nice guy and helped my friends with my winch, I would certainly run dual batteries AND I would install a BIG (read more expensive) alternator that could charge my batteries 2~3 times faster than my stock alternator. That would be the optimum setup, and also the most expensive. I could winch for longer continuous periods of time AND my batteries would recover much faster and be ready for more winching again.
  
• Now....forgetting about the winching requirements for a little bit, there is another advantage to having a dual battery setup. By installing a battery isolator (not too expensive) in your dual battery setup, you can safely have one battery that will NOT ever be supplying power to your vehicle's power hungry circuits.....those little energy eaters that are hooked up to your starter battery. Should your primary starting battery fail, you have an "on-board" spare....or put another way, should you play your stereo all night long....leave the headlights on when you go to work, etc.....you will still have a fully charged battery to switch in and get yourself home.
  
• OK....I probably gave you more info than what you wanted, but I hope you see the various ways by which you can setup your Jeep based on how you expect to use it. The worst case scenario is that you get one Yellow Top and use it for a while. If you find yourself either in need of a second battery....or you want to be able to charge that one battery faster, you get a 2nd battery or get a bigger alternator (or both).
  
• The nice part about doing this "electrical" mod is that unlike many other mods, you don't waste your money by starting with the "small" option and then seeing how it works. You do get to add on to this one and continue to utilize your previously spent $$. Not always true when doing lifts, tires, etc.
  
• Hope this helps.........Stu

December 3, 2000

I recently spoke with a good friend of mine who recently put a pair of Yellow Tops in his Chevy Blazer.  You would have to understand him to appreciate his vehicle.  Doug is an RF tech that does a lot of mountain top maintenance trips.  He has a ton of radio equipment in his vehicle, 400 watts of off-road lighting, a 1000W power inverter....well, you probably are getting the idea.

He has always ran a dual-battery setup so as to provide ample current for his electrical and electronic equipment.  Not too long ago, Doug had been running the "Black Panther" deep cycle batteries.  He told me that he bought a pair of them about 4 years ago and has had them replaced, under warranty, about every 6 months.  After 6 months of use, they fail to pass a sustained medium current load test.

About a month ago, he got a pair of used Yellow Tops from a friend.  They had been removed from an ambulance that had been totaled in an accident.  The batteries had been in service for approximately 1 year and were virtually flat when Doug got them.  By flat, I mean there was almost no voltage showing on a VOM when you checked them.  It seems that during the accident, one or more devices either shorted out or were turned on and the dual batteries were drained down to nothing.  This condition existed for about 2 weeks before they were removed from the wreck and given to Doug.

Doug put them both on a charger and proceeded to bring them back to life.  Once charged, he put them into his Blazer and started using them in the same manner as he had done with the Panther batteries.  Doug told me that they are working perfectly.  He said they perform just as though they were brand new out of the box.  His power inverter runs about double the time he use to get from it using the Panther batteries.

I've known Doug for almost 10 years now.  He is very meticulous about his work vehicle and if he says these 1 year old used (and abused) Yellow Tops perform like they were brand new....well, that is good enough for me.  I'll take his word any day.