Is the HF solar charger a tender as well? I’ve boiled batteries dry on trickle charge and went off and forgot about them.
Many folks rear mount a battery, 12/15? Feet from original location. Larger gauge wiring for charging and cranking. Let’s face it, unless you are borrowing a battery from something, taking it out and storing it is a pain. You do get some motivation to yank it and put it back in whatever you took it out from. Maybe that’s just me. But I do see your point, but I don’t trailer and winch vehicles for a living. When I had a car trailer I used a portable winch and pulled the battery from my forklift or tractor. Which ever was closer at the time.
If you're just using the trailer occasionally, you might want to borrow the battery from another car for the trip, then charge it before putting it back in the car. Then you wont have to worry about what kind of battery to buy, and you won't get pissed off about having to shell out a buck and a half for a battery you probably won't end up using much before it dies.
The reality is if the cables are sized appropriately the winch has no idea how close the battery is. I have long leads with clamps on the end so I open the hood of the truck and clamp them to the battery, it seems to work fine. I used to bring a spare battery but that was a pain.
Finn, I think you have a mis-conception about AGM batteries. Here are two references that point out that they have good CCA and that many new cars come with them now. Hope this helps . CCA stands for Cold Cranking Amps, which is a rating used in the battery industry to define a battery’s ability to crank an engine in cold temperatures. It measures how much current (measured in Amps) a new, fully charged 12V battery could deliver for 30 seconds while maintaining 7.2V at 0°F (-18°C)123. The higher the CCA rating, the more powerful the battery12. AGM batteries generally perform better in all temperatures and tend towards good CCA ratings www.interstatebatteries.com/blog/what-is-an-agm-battery-and-whats-the-big-deal
My wife’s Jeep is eight years old and has an AGM battery from the factory. (Actually I just bought its first replacement, also an AGM, from Costco, for $199, which is about half what others were asking for an AGM of that size) An AGM battery isn’t the same, necessarily, as a deep cycle battery, although they can be. My trolling motor uses a liquid lead acid battery, but I ***ume that there’s an AGM to replace it, when that time comes. To my knowledge, AGM technology in car batteries became popular with the automakers when start stop was introduced.
Do you want to make a Warn winch work on the 18ft trailer? Especially since it will be used to pull such heavy vehicles as a 39 Pontiac 4dr sedan (without someone driving it)? "A deep cycle battery." This is what will help you. By the way, deep cycle batteries are not made to supply a large amount of current all at once; rather, they are designed to deliver a constant current over a long period and thus, they can stand the repeated discharge/charge cycles that the operation of a winch acquires. This is because of why deep cycle batteries are the most suitable choice for your needs than heavy-duty starter battery. The latter one is meant to provide short bursts of high current, rather than deep discharges that are often repeated.
I have used a regular 12 volt battery, have a large winch 3500 pull, the battery will last years, I never have had to charge the battery when traveling, the battery is good for 4 on/off pulls, and I have pulled cars on the trailer with flat tires, frozen wheels , stuck in mud, always had plenty of power,
If you read a little about what happens when a battery is run down, as it would be during operation of a winch on a trailer, it allows sulfate to form in the bottom of the battery. The idea of a charging system in a car is that the battery will not sit in that condition, but will immediately begin being charged when the motor starts.....so generally a deep discharge is avoided as well as sitting in a discharged condition. When operating a winch with a stand alone battery, you are going to have a somewhat or even deeply discharged battery because there is no immediate recharging. Add to that most people aren't going to immediately recharge their battery as soon as they get home. Some batteries and some people seem to have better luck than others with their batteries...........I never do. An AGM battery is made to work with more deeply discharged conditions because it has a "mat" in the bottom and is more resistant to the formulation of sulfate.......so generally someone should have much fewer problems with discharged batteries. The OEMs have things that continuously draw power (computer memory), so when cars sit for extended periods they can discharge. I had a battery in my truck that kept getting discharged. I had a Garvin GPS mounted in it, and there was a small light that stayed on when it was plugged in. It was in the plug in and facing down.Even though I kept the GPS unplugged on the other end, the light stayed on.....unbeknownst to me. Once I "saw the light" so to speak......no more problems. Oh, and I replaced the battery with an AGM since the old one was having problems now.
let me make a correction on my post , when I said the battery is good for 3 or 4 on/off loading cycles I meant that it is good for 3 or 4 on off loading cycles before recharging the battery, but the battery would be usable for 4 0r 5 years.
The Jalopy Journal
