Car Battery Chagers -Deep Cycle vrs traditional (1 Viewer)

I bought an Optima yellow top deep cycle battery for my toyota after recs on some toyota boards, it is supposedly a deep cycle battery which traditional has more marine applications than car, but hey, I needed a new battery on a car that is mostly a summer car.

I have a craftsman (sears) battery charger starter and it has two selections, deep cycle vrs traditional. It does a 2am slow charge, a 10amp fast charge and an engine starter.

What is the difference in how it charges if I select deep cycle vrs traditional? I presume I should be using the DC charge but I'm curious why is there a difference... Any problems with using the trad. charge algorithm on a DC battery?

Jay

If it is a deep cycle battery, you want to use the deep cycle charge, the problem is that your car will not "deep cycle" a battery, electric trolling motors and battery powered cars deep cycle their batteries since they are running on the battery untill you charge it, your car is only using battery power to start it and to possibly make up a little power when idling at a ligth with all your lights and stuff on

one of the problems you might run into is that deep cycle batteries do not give as much cranking power (dead short amps) as a regular battery, they are not designed to, they are designed to give alot less power for along time then be charged

Deep Cycle batteries in Marine applications are typically used as a "house bank". This means they are used to run the lights, radio, navigation gear, etc. There is a separate "starting" battery used to actually crank the engine. Most boats have a battery switch so the start battery is not run down when the deep cycle is running the "house".

I don't believe it is wise to use a deep cycle for long-term starting duty...

The yellow top Optima batteries are recommended if you have a lot of accessories on your vehicle (big car stereo, monitors, etc.). This utilizes the deep cycle nature of the battery. The Optima Red top is recommended for basic starting duties.

Deep cycle batteries can be ran dead then recharged many, many times without losing their initial output capaticity and failing unlike traditional batteries.

And the battery is also producing spark through the coil.

Thanks guys. I'm somewhat familiar with the differences between a deep cycle battery vrs a traditional one, but I'm not a EE so I am not familiar with why there is a switch on my charger for charging algorithms and I'm always curious. If there is a electrical engineer out there that can describe the two different algorithms (in general), in layman's terms, that would be cool. I'm always the inquisitive type who likes to ask things!

Jay

Regular car batteries have thin sponge-like plates that will disintegrate with overcharging. A 'normal' charge will charge the battery to the final voltage and stop. A deep cycle battery gets charged to a 'cyclic' voltage and then that voltage is reduced to the 'float' voltage by the charger (kind of overcharging and then running the battery down some). Two charging methods are required due to the completely different construction methods between the batteries.

Thanks Greg, great explanation, just what I was looking for!

Jay