11 Ways To Increase Your Deep Cycle Battery Life - Up By 30%

Proper maintenance of your deep cycle battery will extend their life by more than 30%. The most common types of deep cycle batteries are either flooded (wet cell ) or valve regulated batteries.

Flooded (wet) cell batteries are divided into low maintenance or maintenance free (sealed) types. The sealed batteries are more prone to deep discharge failures and in hot climates tend to have a shorter life because any lost water cannot be replaced.

Gas- recombiant Valve Regulated Lead-Acid (VRLA) batteries are either the Gel Cell group or the Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) group. These are spill proof, have a much longer life but can cost three times more than the flooded type.

Here are 11 easy ways to prolong a battery's life used for trolling motors, marine boating, golf carts, RV's, camping and any other application.

1)Try to make sure the battery you buy is not older than 3 months and is fully charged.

2) Coat the terminals with a high temperature grease or petroleum jelly after firmly attaching your cables. Always turn the charger OFF before you disconnect or connet the cables. When disconnecting first take off the NEGATIVE clamp and then the positive. When connecting always clamp the POSITIVE cable first and negative or ground cable last. Doing this will prevent possible sparks that may ignite any explosive gas which may have formed during charging.

3) To prevent charging problems with batteries connected in parallel or in series, never mix old and new or different types or size batteries. If you do this you will end up overcharging the smaller or weaker one and undercharging the larger, stronger one.

Keep the cable lengths between batteries short and of a large enough size to prevent voltage drop (not more than 0.2 volts).

4) Do not add acid to your deep cycle battery unless you have spilt some. The level of the electrolyte needs to be checked once a month if it is not a sealed battery.

5) Always use only distilled or deionized water because any impurities will severely shorten any battery's life.

6) Try not to discharge the battery by more than 80% of its capacity as this will also affect its performance.

7) Keep the battery free of any corrosion and dirt especially when charging.

8) Fully charge the battery before placing it in storage and boost it once a month. Also remove any connections to prevent possible parasitic drain.

9) If you are storing your deep cycle battery for the winter months, select a cool place where the temperature does not consistently drop below freezing.

10) Extreme temperatures affect batteries' capacity and charging. Hot temperatures causes water loss and that encourages over charging. If it is very cold it then becomes difficult to fully charge them.

11) To try to improve the battery's life you can try what's called an equalization charge. Once you have completed a normal charge cycle, you then do a long low current charge which helps to reduce electrolyte stratification.

The bottom line is that no matter what type of deep cycle batteries you are using if you do not fully recharge them often, then their lifetime will be shortened quite dramatically.