[Unity_Jon]

Also dont be conned by someone telling you to use Leisure batts over Truck batts.

A leisure battery is cool because it can be run pretty much flat and then recharged without wrecking the plates inside the chambers where as a 'normal' battery can't, if you run one of these flat the plates get twisted and corroded and eventually fail.

So leisure batts sound best right ? but consider this, your hydro system will run until the amperage is to low (less than 120amp) to spin the pump motor quick enough to build up enough bar pressure in your system to lift the car, leading you to think the batts are flat - THEY'RE NOT, indeed they have run low, but are not flat they're just too low on power to allow the pump motor to spin, so what do you do ? you re-charge.

You never run the batts totally flat so therefore you dont actually need the leisure battery option, just look after your 'normal' batts !

Leisure batts do however come in higher amperage than 'normal' batts.

If you run your stereo off of your hydro batts then things are a little different as this will drain the battery until its flat.

When you charge a battery, after intial connection to the charger they go through a duty cycle until they are at a state ready to charge, usually about 1-2hrs. Fast chargers pump extra current for a bit to try and speed this process up, which also wrecks the battery !

[Hydros]

Post on Slow-n-low.com regarding charging the old lead-acid car battiers.

Interesting post Unity_Jon, are Leisure batts the new kind with no water? These are the ones with cylinders instead of plates, right?

[fatdaddy]

US/UK language thing maybe?
Deep Cycle/Leisure.same thing

[Unity_Jon]

Yeah as FatDaddy says.

The new 'gel' batts that you can mount upside down and arse about face etc are ok with high ameprage output but you need to be really careful you dont charge them at the wrong rate.
A couple of people have blown them up on charge by using to higher amperage as they are sealed yet still build up gas.

They're better left for stereo systems rather than hydro's

[UCYI3WL]

So that means you just cant use a multicharger?? I know people using Optima batts and never had a problem with them...They just take less space...

[Unity_Jon]

By multicharger i take it you mean a charger with a variable resistance - I.E. it only charges at the rate needed by the battery somewhere from 12ohms down to 0 ohms (fully charged). These are the best type of charger to use for any battery, but you may find with batts link in series it will only drop the rate to 2ohms min because of the resistance made by linking the batts, but that doesn't really matter.

Some people buy cheaper chargers that charge at a flat rate until you turn it off, these are pretty bad unless you time the charge accurately, most people prefer to chuck it on charge and forget about it until the next day !

Because the GEL batts are totally sealed there is nowhere for the gas to escape if you charge them too quickly they produce too mauch gas and split/the cylinders or cells split and the plates touch which sparks and they explode, when charged at the correct rate (printed on the label somewhere) the gas produced is minimal and not a problem.

Also the build quality is a factor, cheap is generally nasty !

[fatdaddy]

[here i go buttin in again ]
i think multicharger here is the standard US lowrider type that can charge at a range of voltages, they do have adjustable charge rate aswell, so they can charge a trunk full of optimas without it being too fast.

[Unity_Jon]

any of you USA guys used these from wootchitronics ?

<a href="http://streetcharger.com" target="_blank">http://streetcharger.com</a>

are they any good ?

[fatdaddy]

i've seen a number of posts about them and all say they are good, but they still dont answer the prob of charging at a show.

[DRLOWZ]

I prefer my handy multi charger...