The lead acid battery has been around virtually unchanged for over 100 years. There are 2 main types with 2 different purposes.
One is what we will call a starter battery. Every car and every boat with an engine has one. It is designed to produce a lot of current for a brief period to power the engine starter motor. As a consequence it must be recharged slowly to get it back to full charge. Starter batteries have a lot of thin lead plates with a lot of surface area to provide the big burst of energy required by the starter motor. The thin lead plates are easily damaged by a high charging current.
The other kind of battery, which we will call a traction battery, is the type used in electric golf buggies amongst other things. These batteries are designed to discharge slowly over a period of time and can be discharged more deeply. They can be recharged more quickly as the plates are more robust. This is a true deep cycle battery. These batteries have thick lead plates as the energy is dissipated more slowly. Consequently they can take a higher recharging current.
There are some hybrid batteries available which are sometimes sold as “deep cycle” batteries. In essence these are starter batteries with slightly thicker plates to improve their deep cycle efficiency slightly. It is important to check exactly what you are buying so that you get the type of battery you require.
Which battery should you use?
Some of this boils down to the cost. A starter battery may cost $125. An equivalent hybrid would be around $240 and a traction battery $380 for similar sized batteries. The traction batteries require a different charging system incurring more expense.
On a boat ideally we need both types of battery and if we are going on a round the world cruise it makes sense to have a starter battery and a house bank of traction batteries with appropriate charging systems. Boats used occasionally on the weekend can opt for the cheapness and simplicity of ordinary 12v starter batteries. For a boat which is occasionally used for longer periods then either starter batteries or the hybrid type for the house battery would be suitable as they can use the same recharging system.
3 comments ↓
There is a much better and safer battery available for boating applications than lead acid/AGM batteries. This is the Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. These batteries are half the weight of an equivalent capacity lead acid battery and have a life of at least twice as long. They are also environmentally friendly as they don’t contain any acid or toxic heavy metals like lead or cadmium.
Hi Armin,
I understand this battery technology is being used in hybrid cars and will soon be widely available. As you say this is a major improvement which will benefit boat owners too.
Cheers
Ian
Hi Ian,
Yes this new battery technology is about to be made available to the boating community.
The power output of the new lithium batteries is quite amazing. For example the battery I will soon be supplying to the Australian market has already been in use for just over six months now in Taiwan. An 80Ah lithium battery weighing only 16.5kg has replaced the 240Ah lead acid starting batteries weighing well over 30kg to start the 380 horsepower marine diesel engines on several large Taiwanese yachs.
The top of the range in these batteries can even automatically do a diagnostic battery test everyday if desired and if there is a possible fault developing with the battery a SMS message can be sent to your phone or an email sent alerting you to the fact!
I am not sure where you are located Ian but if you are in either Sydney or Brisbane I would be more than happy to show you this battery which is the first of its type in Australia.
Cheers,
Armin
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