lrrowe wrote:Tom, that is a good question in that for me, other then true golf cart batteries, they are about all I can find around here. Not to be a wise guy, what is your typical drain like? I wrestled with this issue the other day as I tried to buy a true deep cycle battery for my boat's bait tank. Because of cost, I finally bit the bullet and just bought one of the marine/rv batteries sort of out of desperation.
I have a waeco CF 35 that is the main battery drain. Other than that I have LEDs over the galley and a single incandescent bulb in the cabin, occasionally we will power up a 200W invertor to power a TV and watch a movie before bed. ( and of course phone charging). Probably 1/2 my trips are to places with electricity, and I stay plugged in except for the drive to and from ( I do have a TV charging set up through a 7 pin connector). As I understand it the big difference between deep cycle and starting batteries are that deep cycles can handle "deep cycling" better than a starting battery. ( Deep cycling being drawing the battery down to low voltage )( I've had red top optima batteries that failed after one deep cycling). Even deep cycles have a limit on how often that can happen before they die.
I can see if you are a true off the grid camper ( solar recharging, and away from power for a week or more routinely) then the extra effort and cost for a deep cycle battery might be worth it, but for many of us ( plugged into power at home and not away from electricity for more than a couple of days) then it seems like the costs/benefit isn't really there. I will admit, when I went shopping for this battery if there had been a deep cycle next to it, I would have probably gotten it. However the marine battery has performed perfectly for over 4 years now, and It was completely drained of power on at least two occasions, and after a week on the progressive convertor it acts just like nothing happened.
Tom