Hello, I noticed your conversation involving our batteries and wanted to offer some assistance. Internally, our YellowTops are identical to their BlueTop counterparts, except for the 34M BlueTop, which is the marine equivalent of our Group 34 RedTop starting battery. While BlueTops do offer additional threaded top posts for marine applications, they come with two-year, free replacement warranties, versus three years on consumer YellowTops, as Bill indicated.
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Our batteries can be treated and charged just like regular lead-acid batteries in most situations, although “gel” and “gel/AGM” charger settings should be avoided. Fully-charged, our RedTops will measure about 12.6-12.8 volts, while our YellowTops will measure about 13.0-13.2 volts.
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Whenever people start looking to add additional batteries or upgrade their electrical systems, I always encourage them to make sure their wiring is up to the task, especially because one-wire alternators are so sensitive to good, quality grounds. Any batteries run in series or parallel applications should be identical in size, type and age and it does make sense for some folks running multiple batteries to isolate their starting battery, to ensure there is always voltage available.
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If you do end up discharging a battery to the point where it needs a jump-start, it is a good idea to fully-charge that battery with a battery charger as soon as possible. Most alternators are designed to maintain voltage and asking an alternator to recharge a deeply-discharged battery can lead to a cycle of dead batteries and jump-starts, until either the battery or alternator fails. It is also a good idea to make sure that any battery chargers (especially solar) have proper regulation that will prevent overcharging.
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Johnson Controls has owned Optima for more than a decade, but we still manufacture all of our own batteries in our own facility and they are the only batteries produced there. We never re-brand or re-spec our batteries for any of our retail partners and the quality of our batteries has continually improved under JCI's ownership. The scenario bfdiesel described is fairly common not only for our batteries, but all AGM batteries. Enough of these good batteries were being returned under warranty to us, that Optima decided to produce the video Bill posted. Other manufacturers have responded to their issues by simply voiding the warranty on their batteries, if they are found to be discharged below a specific voltage level.
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Schattenjager, I appreciate your feedback (and everyone else's). Many of the conversations I come across involving our batteries are a reflection of our presence in the marketplace, which covers more than 30,000 retailers worldwide. We could have a manufacturing defect rate that is twice as good as another company and still have ten times as many defective batteries in the marketplace, simply because the other company only sells 1/20th of the batteries that we do.
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Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.facebook.com/optimabatteries