If you have a caravan or a motorhome and you always use campsites with mains hook-up or if you have a boat and always moor in a marina, you can probably get good service out of the cheapest starter battery you can find. * Having said that, for many people, a starter battery can be just what they need as a leisure battery. This difference in weight can mean a significant difference in performance and life expectancy. We weighed one of the most popular 110Ah leisure batteries – with a well-known name, an attractive label and lots of advertising support – and found that it weighed in at 5Kgs less than another 110Ah battery which is specifically designed to be used as a leisure battery. Lead is heavy but the more lead in a battery, the better the battery is likely to perform when used as for operating applainces. Because deep cycle batteries are usually subjected to much more stress than starter batteries, they may not last as long but their useful life is entirely dependent on exactly how they’re used and maintained.Ī simple way to tell whether a battery is what it claims to be or is just – let’s not mince words – a con trick is to weigh it. They’re designed to operate motors on machinery, fork-lift trucks, etc: even submarines! This makes them ideal for use as leisure batteries. True leisure batteries are really deep cycle or traction batteries and have thick plates which enable them to cope with the demands of high current draw and frequent, prolonged discharging. Starter batteries are not designed to be able to withstand deep discharge and this makes them unsuitable for use as leisure batteries when frequent deep discharge is going to occur.*Ģ) As explained above, most so-called leisure batteries are starter batteries with a caravan, a motorhome or a boat on their labels. They have thin plates which can release and absorb energy quickly and, because they are usually charged up as soon as energy has been taken out, they require very little maintenance and can last for many years. How is a leisure battery different from a starter battery?ġ) Starter batteries are designed and built so that they can release large amounts of energy for just a few seconds – when turning over an engine. The reality is that almost all batteries which claim to be “leisure” batteries are actually starter batteries with a fancy label. But, however a battery is described and whatever it says on the label, the fact of the matter is that a battery is either designed to be a starter battery OR a deep-cycle battery of some sort or another: it can’t be both. In other parts of the world they’re known as “domestic batteries”, “house batteries”, “auxiliary batteries” and “service batteries”.Ĭaravan and motorhome dealers, chandlers and other retail outlets usually sell a variety of these batteries, often with images of caravans, motorhomes and boats on the label and with vivid descriptions such as “High Power”, “Deep Cycle”,” “Multi-Purpose”, etc. These are known as deep-cycle or traction batteries.Ī leisure battery isn’t a particular type of battery: it’s just what someone decided to call the battery that is used in caravans, motorhomes and boats to power the 12V equipment on board. There are basically two kinds of lead-acid battery in common use: ones which are designed to start engines and others which are intended for powering motors or equipment of one sort or another.
It’s the way that these materials are combined that makes them more or less suitable for particular applications. So, treat this as an informative but far from exhaustive guide to leisure batteries.Īll lead-acid batteries are made with similar raw materials including: lead, tin, other metals, lead oxide, sulphuric acid and water.
Different manufacturers use different materials in their batteries which changes the way they work.Īnd, we really don’t have the time or space to go into Peukert’s Law other than to say batteries last longer and give more energy overall if you use them gently. For example, temperature affects a battery’s performance hugely and batteries last far longer in Iceland than they do in Saudi Arabia. They look quite simple but the physics and chemistry involved is very complex indeed and the conditions in which they’re used affect their performance as well. Gaston Planté, they are similar now to how they were then. The RoadPro Guide to Lead-acid Leisure BatteriesĪlthough lead-acid batteries have been around since 1859 when they were invented by M.
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