Odyssey vs. Diehard Platinum

Xterabl

Adventurer
Well, color me flabergasted...75 AH for that kind of footprint is fantastic...if it lasts, of course!
My yellow top is about gone...it's going on 7 years now, with a fair amount of dis/charge...it was one of the last of the higher-quality builds, I believe.
Anyways, this Exide beast is now at/near the top of my list.
Thanks all for the feedback!

ETA: Oh, here's another similar footprint, but about an inch taller, with 79AH (might be too tall, depending on the reinforcement ribbing pattern in my hood cover). Seems really cheap. It's 53 lbs.
http://www.remybattery.com/Intimida...y-P4435.aspx?gclid=CKn_jLL4usMCFYU7gQod9LgA4w
 
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dwh

Tail-End Charlie
HA! Shari Prange thought of it 5 years before I did. :sombrero:

Actually, I remember in the old days, they used to spec out battery capacity for telecom (and datacenter) battery backup by the pound. I just couldn't remember what the spec was. :)
 

Chuzie

New member
I've been thinking about an odyssey for my 77 bronco but have heard concerns regarding infrequent use of the battery can reduce its life. I drive it once or twice a month and go offroad 2 weekends a year. The odyssey would be my second battery for winching and that almost never happens.

Is this a valid concern or Internet lore?

Sent from my GS3 on Cyanogenmod with the older / better version of Tapatalk!
 

teotwaki

Excelsior!
I've been thinking about an odyssey for my 77 bronco but have heard concerns regarding infrequent use of the battery can reduce its life. I drive it once or twice a month and go offroad 2 weekends a year. The odyssey would be my second battery for winching and that almost never happens.

Is this a valid concern or Internet lore?

Sent from my GS3 on Cyanogenmod with the older / better version of Tapatalk!

I will assume that "infrequent use" is not just discharge but also any sort of charging. A battery can lose charge from internal losses but AGM batteries are supposed to have the lowest self-discharge numbers. There may be external low current drain from things in the Bronco that could run the battery flat over many weeks of time.

I would first make a point of putting a good voltmeter on the battery once a week and see if the battery's voltage is dropping or not. A good battery tender could put your mind at ease.

Just one of many examples: Others may have direct experience and suggest other models and brands
http://www.batterytender.com/Automotive/Battery-Tender-Junior-12V-0-75A.html
 

offero

Desert rat
I will assume that "infrequent use" is not just discharge but also any sort of charging. A battery can lose charge from internal losses but AGM batteries are supposed to have the lowest self-discharge numbers. There may be external low current drain from things in the Bronco that could run the battery flat over many weeks of time.

I would first make a point of putting a good voltmeter on the battery once a week and see if the battery's voltage is dropping or not. A good battery tender could put your mind at ease.

Just one of many examples: Others may have direct experience and suggest other models and brands
http://www.batterytender.com/Automotive/Battery-Tender-Junior-12V-0-75A.html

Probably not much in a '77 that would drain a battery, assuming no lights were left on or modern gadgets plugged in. And that is pure speculation on my part as I've never had a car older than an '83 Civic. I know a lot of guys with classic or even modern toy cars put a negative battery disconnect on their negative post to cut the connection when the vehicle is stored. I've found that a full (~12.8V reading after many hours of rest) Odyssey or Sears Diehard lasts quite a long time if nothing's connected to it.

Having said that, I second the Battery Tender or even Odyssey's own charger to either keep plugged into it while garaged or simply to top it off for a day or two once a month.
 

craig333

Expedition Leader
Good luck getting the Odyssey Ultimizer in CA. I've just had two different companies tell me that can't ship me one in CA. One was even located in CA.
 

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
Good luck getting the Odyssey Ultimizer in CA. I've just had two different companies tell me that can't ship me one in CA. One was even located in CA.

Weird. I ordered an Ultimizer 50 from mudflaps.com back in August without issue. (Ok, a minor issue in that the first one was DOA, but it was swiftly replaced.)
 
I have to agree regarding the Odyssey Information, I had an email exchange with the Enersys rep and she was extremely helpful regarding my low resting rate Diehard Platinums. I finally had time this past weekend to pull the Aux battery and start the recovery process, after one discharge-charge cycle per their instructions, my aux battery was resting at 12.78 after being off the charger for 12 hours. I will check it again tonight when I get home to see if it's holding but it certainly has given me hope.
If all is good with the Aux, I will swap it with the main, and try to recover that one as well.


dstock- That's really great news! A lot of water under the bridge since I was here last. Have been preparing for a trip to Alaska that will go several months. Am happy to see you finally got the Ultimizer and it's working for you. Have pounded that nail quite hard several times on this thread as well as other environments and see that others are getting on board. Picked up the Ulitimizer 40 amp 3 bank from the Odyssey folks last week for $139.90 on sale. Here's the link if anybody else is interested. http://shop.odysseybattery.com/p/omax-40as-3b. Don't know how long that price will hold.

To recap briefly for those who might be new to the thread, have been using a very small 2012-AGM for ~3 years to keep a pair of Group 65 Platinums topped off when they dropped to 12.6 volts. This little charger/desufator always brought them back up to rest at 12.9+. Temp compensated at the battery, too and was able to leave it connected from below 0 to well over 100 deg. This works fine if they're not deep cycled. Deep cycling is when you need the big charger. Since deep cycling is anticipated for the Alaska trip, finally broke down and got prepared for it.

Just a tip for the dual battery setup in something like the Powerstroke using the 3B chargers- It's obvious that the batteries shouldn't remain in parallel for charging with any of the Ultimizers. I thought I could get away with disconnecting the cable (-) from just ONE battery to isolate them both for sequential charging. Am not going to go into explaining the weirdness the charger exhibits & why that doesn't work. It won't even work if you try to charge ONE bank at a time with only the (-) disconnected. So, to do this properly, ONE battery has to have BOTH the (+) and (-) cables removed. That would likely hold true for any type of 3 bank parallel setup, too. The batteries need to be completely isolated from each other. Then the multiple bank sequential charging works like a charm, even if the batteries are at different states of charge.

Documentation is kind of weak and you almost have to infer from what you expect of the Odysee battery charge profile to see if the the charger is working properly. That said, I haven't seen anything yet spec-wise or performance-wise that it is temperature compensated. With temps ranging from 20s overnight to mid 70s during the day, there has been ample opportunity for the charger to show any ability in that area.

My 2 Group 65s require a 25 amp minimum charger and the OMAX 40 will throw 39+amps at them @ 66% SOC and complete the charge all the while alternating between the 2 batteries. This charger originally was sold at $220. For $140 directly from Enersys with a 5 year warranty, will hold off complaining too loudly about the lack of temp compensation for now.

With respect to Odyssey discontinuing the Platinum line for Sears. That's really to be expected. For some time now the Sears/Kmart union has been disintegrating financially and really wasn't expected to survive 2014. Same prognosis for 2015.

Will visit here again after Alaska to see how things are going, maybe earlier if there is anything worthwhile to report on this 40 amp 3B charger. Meanwhile, a PM will get a response as I can get to it.
 
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SuperTrooper

Observer
Just ordered the 40 amp ultimizer. Great deal at that price. I bought a group 65 die hard platinum in the fall and it's always had a resting voltage of around 12.6 which I thought was normal until reading this thread. Hopefully the charger can bump it back up.
 

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