Advice needed on what leisure battery to buy?

[jchambers]

I just visited Torch for the first time last weekend and was lucky enough to be leant the use of some charging facilities by the very nice race organisers.

Now I know I'd like to race again at Torch I need to buy a leisure battery for charging my 7.4 stick lipos. I still need to learn about batteries and there seems to be quite a few to choose from. Can anybody please advise me on what spec of leisure battery I should be buying?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Jim

[RobW]

Hi Jim

I have found the easiest place to pick up a leisure battery is a caravan accessory shop. You can get them in Halfords, but seem a bit pricier, and there are loads of them on line with free delivery which is pretty good as they are quite heavy!!

Basically just need to make sure they are a deep cycle leisure battery and not a normal 12v car battery. My current leisure battery is a 80AH one and this has lasted for all day buggy events with both my and my sons lipos being charged off it. I think it was about £65 bought locally. Unless you are going to lots of 2 day outdoor race meetings where you will not get the chance to charge it overnight then I cannot see much point in a larger capacity one unless it is a really good price – just more expensive and bigger/heavier to carry. I suppose you could justify it on the basis that as the battery gets a bit older and loses some of its capacity, then a larger capacity one might carry on a bit longer??

You will need to get a charger which is designed for leisure/marine batteries and not one for normal 12v car batteries. Leisure batteries and 12V car batteries look very similar to me but understand that their charge/discharge characteristics mean they cannot be treated the same.

HTH

Rob

[Stuweatherman]

I use a 17ah gel cell battery which can be charged from my charger when I get home. It just about lasts a day of charging batteries but would recommend 24ah +

[lordnikon]

Towsure in southampton is the best place locally. I ended up buying a small generator instead as it wasn't much more expensive

[jchambers]

Thanks for all the advice on what battery to go for. I'll certainly be checking out the caravan shop and towsure for something suitable.

Sadly I won't be able to make this Sunday's event but will look forward to racing again in a couple of weeks.

Cheers
Jim