Looking to upgrade my battery

[brkdncr]

Pretty blanket statement by someone who doesn't know the techs qualifications, but there is always one in the group. And Im sure you have the qualifications or know "people" that know much better! This forum is about having conversations and getting peoples experiences with an issue they are having. If the answers someone gives isn't to your liking click past it and post something constructive.

just making sure people don’t accept your experiences as misinformation. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong:

• no one calls AAA for a jump when their battery is working fine. Selection bias.
• most cars have start/stop. Selection bias.
• you only stated their qualifications were being a AAA jump starter.

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[gbub]

Yes, that is an option I have already considered, but as I said in my original post, I prefer not to deal with having a second battery. I was able to do this for many years with my 02 Ranger with just the one battery. I should be able to figure out a way to do it with a Bronco.

I have already run tests with the refrigerator and have determined one battery is fine for cooler nights, I just need to find a higher capacity battery to get though warmer nights. One thing I am considering is changing the battery management system to allow the battery to be charged to 90% rather than 80%. That would give me a little more capacity and if I go to an 880 CCA Optima or even an 850 CCA Odyssey, I should have plenty reserve to keep the refrigerator cool.

I also use solar to charge the battery during the day if I am staying at one place more than overnight. It works well when there is sun. I just recently upgraded to a 200 watt panel (from 100 watt) and have found it provides enough power even when is cloudy. I have not tried it on a rainy day yet.

 

[raymondcielo]

just making sure people don’t accept your experiences as misinformation. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong:

• no one calls AAA for a jump when their battery is working fine. Selection bias.
• most cars have start/stop. Selection bias.
• you only stated their qualifications were being a AAA jump starter.

So you’re a fact checker. I get it. Any answers given here could be part of the solution. I never said that was the only thing that could cause the issue. Your only response was to discredit mine instead of offering up some of your battery “expertise”.

 

[RHeinz]

Yes, that is an option I have already considered, but as I said in my original post, I prefer not to deal with having a second battery. I was able to do this for many years with my 02 Ranger with just the one battery. I should be able to figure out a way to do it with a Bronco.

I have already run tests with the refrigerator and have determined one battery is fine for cooler nights, I just need to find a higher capacity battery to get though warmer nights. One thing I am considering is changing the battery management system to allow the battery to be charged to 90% rather than 80%. That would give me a little more capacity and if I go to an 880 CCA Optima or even an 850 CCA Odyssey, I should have plenty reserve to keep the refrigerator cool.

I also use solar to charge the battery during the day if I am staying at one place more than overnight. It works well when there is sun. I just recently upgraded to a 200 watt panel (from 100 watt) and have found it provides enough power even when is cloudy. I have not tried it on a rainy day yet.

CCA may have nothing to do with capacity (amp-hours). Totally different spec. To run a fridge you need AMP-HOURS. My fridge runs at about 30-35 amp hours @ 12 VDC.

I deal with conditions in the lower US. Texas, Arizona, Southern Utah…

EDIT: Sorry to mislead… OK, I still don’t have this right….(sorry). EDIT again. please forgive me.

My fridge requires an average of about 35 watt-hours, EQUIVALENT to about 3 AMP-HOURS.

WATT-HOURS!!!! OHMS LAW…..

 

[brkdncr]

So you’re a fact checker. I get it. Any answers given here could be part of the solution. I never said that was the only thing that could cause the issue. Your only response was to discredit mine instead of offering up some of your battery “expertise”.

I don't have battery expertise, and don't know anyone with it, so I didn't have anything to offer that might not be wrong.

Here's what i do know:

• Battery tech has improved in the last 20 years.
• Batteries have succumbed to capitalism endgame and the tolerance between a good batt and a poor one is razer thin.
• I also know that vehicle technology relies a lot more on electricity than ever before. A 7 year old battery that has an internal short can take a charge from my welder and work fine in either of my 60's era vehicles and shitty Italian scooter, but won't run either of my BMW bikes and definitely will leave me stranded in the Bronco.
• In a perfectly controlled environment, UPS batteries have a 1 year warranty and are replaced without thought after 5 years. The UPS vendors i've spoken with (Eaton, APC/SE) have said this is completely normal, and that there hasn't been much improvement to battery tech to extend this further.

My personal, opinionated and probably incorrect conclusion?
Batteries are good until they aren't.
The best you can expect is that they will last a single year.
You should proactively replace batteries at 5 years even if they are working perfectly fine.

and yeah, i'm a fact checker. There's too much mis-information on the internet as it is. I used to not care but it turns out that can lead to propagation of misinformation. This wasn't a problem years ago, but between everyone getting all information from online and assuming it's correct, and LLM (AI) scraping this information and presenting it as truthful results, I feel it's important to fact check.

sorry for the rant.

 

[Brian_B]

Battery tech has improved in the last 20 years.

I would say — lead acid batteries have not moved much at all in 20-30 years - and provably even longer than that honestly. AGM is not very new tech, its just gotten a bit more available

BUT

Battery tech as a whole has. Lithium totally changed the game. Especially LiFePo cells.

Which is why i think the advise to go with one of the battery packs (or an external LiFePo pack) that leverage that new tech is better than trying to just rely on your starting battery. Unless you want to drop $1k+ on a lithium auto battery.

That AGM battery in your Bronco? It was developed in the 1930s. The reason its AGM is to try to support the more stable voltages needed by all the on board computers (another big reason to ~not~ try to make your starting battery pull double duty)

Now - you can make it work, sure. But that doesn’t make it a great idea.

 

[brkdncr]

I would say — lead acid batteries have not moved much at all in 20-30 years - and provably even longer than that honestly. AGM is not very new tech, its just gotten a bit more available

BUT

Battery tech as a whole has. Lithium totally changed the game. Especially LiFePo cells.

Which is why i think the advise to go with one of the battery packs (or an external LiFePo pack) that leverage that new tech is better than trying to just rely on your starting battery. Unless you want to drop $1k+ on a lithium auto battery.

That AGM battery in your Bronco? It was developed in the 1930s. The reason its AGM is to try to support the more stable voltages needed by all the on board computers (another big reason to ~not~ try to make your starting battery pull double duty)

Now - you can make it work, sure. But that doesn’t make it a great idea.

Completely agree.

 

[Dawgzz]

Just had the XS battery installed to power new audio.

 

[gbub]

CCA may have nothing to do with capacity (amp-hours). Totally different spec. To run a fridge you need AMP-HOURS. My fridge runs at about 30-35 amp hours @ 12 VDC.

I deal with conditions in the lower US. Texas, Arizona, Southern Utah…

EDIT: Sorry to mislead… OK, I still don’t have this right….(sorry). EDIT again. please forgive me.

My fridge requires an average of about 35 watt-hours, EQUIVALENT to about 3 AMP-HOURS.

WATT-HOURS!!!! OHMS LAW…..

Yes, CCA is not the thing I need most. I start there and also look at AH next but Reserve Capacity is what makes my final decision. The problem is some batteries give AH and some give RC and not always both. That makes it difficult to compare batteries sometimes

 

[gbub]

I would say — lead acid batteries have not moved much at all in 20-30 years - and provably even longer than that honestly. AGM is not very new tech, its just gotten a bit more available

BUT

Battery tech as a whole has. Lithium totally changed the game. Especially LiFePo cells.

Which is why i think the advise to go with one of the battery packs (or an external LiFePo pack) that leverage that new tech is better than trying to just rely on your starting battery. Unless you want to drop $1k+ on a lithium auto battery.

That AGM battery in your Bronco? It was developed in the 1930s. The reason its AGM is to try to support the more stable voltages needed by all the on board computers (another big reason to ~not~ try to make your starting battery pull double duty)

Now - you can make it work, sure. But that doesn’t make it a great idea.

I have looked deep into lithium batteries and they are impressive. They are light weight, long life and have great power. The problem I have with them is the really good ones don't fit the Bronco without modification of the battery tray. The one that does fit is a H6 Group 48 Anti Gravity. The maximum AH it has is 60 compared to the Motorcraft 94RH7 which I think is around 80 AH. I also don't know if the Bronco Battery Management System would work with a lithium battery. It sounds like a risky investment to me.

Getting one battery to do what I want it to may be a challenge but the engineer in me is not afraid of a challenge. I have developed things for aerospace no one else was willing to take on. I was fortunate to have a boss that was willing to fund those developments. This project seems feasible to me.

 

[Tye]

Just had the XS battery installed to power new audio.

What did you mount uour audio fuse block to? Love the clean look. Is that 2 wires of 1/0 you are running?

Also, what made you choose
that xs battery over their Titan8 line of batteries?

 

[Dawgzz]

It is 1/0 and the fuse block is just to right of the battery 300 amp fuses. Used the orange wire as runs back and can be seen in the sub box. The installer is the local distributor for the battery, we didn’t talk about other options.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I have developed things for aerospace no one else was willing to take on.

This makes me laugh because it seems in that application, well at least the space part, having an abundance of power (just in case of emergency) has always been key. Yet you are looking for the bare minimum you can get away with IF everything goes right.

My simple opinion, if you're going to be that remote .. I'd look at the standby type power systems and if there is one that could also be used to jump the Bronco if you're out in the wilds , even better.
But it is just a difference in opinion.

I like to be the guy that has the reserve power or the correct tools or equipment to bail out those who are ill prepared.
I seem to run into far more of the "ill prepared" needing help than I do the "well equipped".

 

[Dawgzz]

I have taken that under consideration as I was told to not run it for any period of time without the engine on. I was on the fence whether or not I should upgrade the alternator and as you said an alternative power source. I’m learning as I go so any input is appreciated.

 

[Brian_B]

I have taken that under consideration as I was told to not run it for any period of time without the engine on. I was on the fence whether or not I should upgrade the alternator and as you said an alternative power source. I’m learning as I go so any input is appreciated.

I think the advice to not run your (very nice looking, by the way) stereo without the Bronco running for long is good.

For alternate power source there - I would take a wait-and-see approach to that. You already upgraded the battery. If you run into an issue where you have battery drain even though you are only running the stereo with the Bronco running, then yeah, you are going to need to supplement that. But it would take a lot of pull from that stereo -- like rattling the neighbors windows non-stop, permanent hearing damage territory, never turning the music off full-blast super-heavy bass all the time type of load.

You'll know if your Bronco starts to hit deep sleep after a few days of running it. ~Most~ non-competition level systems don't even come close to needing a new alternator, let alone a new battery - you just don't run them loud enough long enough to drain the battery so hard that the stock alternator can't keep up over time.

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