Reply to "Optima Battery Life in a Pantera"

Just had this discussion on another forum and Optima and any of the gel cell or AGM (Abosrbed glass mat) batteries suffer if deep discharged. Ideally they should not fall below 50% charge and often if you have high demand and/or a std amperage alternator the charging rate on a drive is not enough to replenish them. If they ever get fully discharged then their life is reduced to something like 300 cycles.

The answer is to use an intelligent battery charger like the CTEK, Deltran or similar. (The CTEK is out of Sweden and consitently achieves the highest consumer ratings) They have different charging modes as they receive feedback from the battery state.

I have one of the small Deltran units that permanently attaches to the battery, just a case of plug it into the extension cord when I get home.

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One more note about lead acids, I have heard some who take lead acids which have seem to have failed, flushed them out the re serviced them. Evidently the breakdown of the plates sits in the bottom of the battery conducting through the plates allowing the battery to discharge.

More normally the lead 'sulfates' on the surface of the plates and passivates the cell, when a charge is applied the reaction is normally reversed, but not totally, the deeper the discharge the more passivation occurs. The Pb + H2SO4 --> PbSO4 + H2O. Therefore I suspect the action of flushing and adding in fresh acid is more the reason for a 'renewal'.