I spent quite a while today talking the Juan, the tech and repair guy at Premier Power Welder about batteries. He gave me a LOT of good info about batteries.

I have my unit in there for repair. Turns out that the way it was mounted was causing the case to flex and was grounding out the rectifier bridge, as was evidenced by burn marks and that eventually killed the voltage regulator. To solve that I'm just going to have to make a plate to mount the welder on so that it uses the factory mounting points and it will protect against flexing of the case. A 1/16" of flex can cause the unit to ground out.

Anyway, we talked more about batteries than anything else. I already knew that mismatching batteries was not a good choice, but I could not find a lead acid battery that would fit where one of my Optima's was and I was destroying Optimas when winching. Apparently mixing a lead acid with gel cell is about the worst thing that you can do because of how they charges, the amount of voltage they will accepts and how they drain. Juan states that a gel cell is not ideally suited for off road use other than the benefit of not spilling acid in the case of a roll or accident. However, they cannot accept a high charge or a heavy load without internal damage to the battery.  My Warn 12k winch sucks a TON of amperage and can drain batteries in minutes under a heavy load, even with the engine running. He also talked about the useage of a typicall 4x4 which may sit idle for weeks or months, then under use is typically not at a high RPM to give it a good charge and then we drain it heavy with lights, winching, air compressors etc. The Optimas do not hold up well to this type of use, any of the optimas... I've have gone through a ton of them that won't hold charges after a few months.

He told me about another battery called the Odyssey that had fantastic specs! http://www.odysseyfactory.com/faq.html They are quite spendy but I was also able to find a 34 series to fit where the Optima was. So I'm matching up my batteries FINALLY with something that will hopefully better handle my electrical needs. I am currently running a cheapo GM 1 wire that's probably putting out 60 amps at peak. My air compressor is a 50 amp continuous draw, then I have electric fans (s) an electric water pump and everything else that runs like lights, heaters etc. So unless I'm running at a decent RPM my alternator is barely keeping up at best and my batteries are slowly draining all day at worst.

My Premier system is 160 amp and has a 16.3v high charge feature to use while welding or winching. This high charge would fry the Optima if I used it since it can only handle about 14v at max before overheating. The Oddysey can handle about 17v (most lead acid types can handle about 16.5 without problems), so they can safely handle the extra juice when needed. Unfortunately I won't have it back for Elbe this weekend, but just thought I'd share some info that I gleaned today.

I found a dealer in Sumner who sells them. They have a FULL 100% - not prorated, 4 year warranty. There are quite a few in Washington.

http://www.odysseyfactory.com/states/popup_wa.html