Odyssey PC2250ST 6tl the bad? best seller?

[Mogman]

OK I have decided that I must go with AGM batteries in my HMMWV some of the reasons are,
#1 reason my wife's (41 years now) butt shall not sit upon a hydrogen bomb! (yes I know an AGM can gas off but it is much less likely)
#2 plan on stashing some of the electronics ( rear winch relays for one) in that compartment so the corrosive nature of the flooded cell batteries and the above explosive nature shall be avoided.
Because of the winch and the fact I am a radio guy and plan on having mucho radio gear on board dictates to go with the largest reserve capacity etc, is why I am looking at the Odyssey PC2250ST as it has the best specs that I have found, (It appears the Odyssey is at the very TOP of the battery food chain please correct me if I am wrong!) so they are good at stating the good, I just want to know if anyone has had bad experiences with them and possibly a preferred seller, I have found them at several retailers for around $570 ea. shipped.

 

[TOBASH]

Cheaper to relocate batteries. For 1200 clams you can relocate the batteries to rear compartment or a rear seat.

even a divorce might be cheaper.

 

[M1078MAN]

I love em, YES expensive, however, imho, THE BEST OF THE BEST.

 

[TOBASH]

Great batteries but not at 600 clams. Get the civilian versions.

 

[Mogman]

And that would be???? I thought the Odyssey WAS the civilian version of the Hawker... I was asking about value but "that's too much for a battery" was not what I was shooting for Yes it is allot BUT when you are in the middle of BFE and your truck will not start....
If one starts out looking for the cheapest item that is what one usually ends up with.
Life is too short for cheap crap...
I can go on and on...
SPEAKING OF CHEAP,,, DURAMAX'S in Houston, if you don't mind a little mud in the cylinders!!

 

[Coug]

Odyssey and Northstar brands are both at the top of the battery food chain from all the research I've done.
Odyssey is probably the best and only real option if you want to maximize the power stored inside the stock battery compartment.


If you want to add another battery box under the rear passenger seat, you could probably do 4 Northstar group 24AGMs for the same price, which would give you a little more stored power.
Odyssey PC2250ST has 1225 CCA, the Northstar has 840.
Odyssey has 126 AH and 240 minutes reserve capacity, the Northstar has 76 AH and 160 minutes reserve capacity.
Since for about the same cost you can do twice as many of the Northstar, it ends up being 152 AH and 320 minutes reserve capacity, and 1680 CCA. The other advantage is if one or even two batteries get fried somehow, you can use the other two to get the truck started, as the 6T battery minimum spec back in the day was supposedly only around 600CCA.
Using the Northstar batteries would be a little more work to set up and wire, but if you're looking at this purely from a cost/benefit analysis,the northstar come out slightly ahead.

https://www.northstarbattery.com/product/nsb-agm24
https://www.batterymart.com/p-odyssey-pc2250st-battery.html

Both have 4 year warranties on them.

If you purchase the Northstar batteries through Batteries Plus you actually get a 5 year full warranty on them instead of the 4 year, and an additional 10% off from the mfg website pricing if you order them online and pick up in store (or just go in and talk with them, the local Batteries Plus guys work with me on pricing on stuff all the time, but I use a commercial account)(you have a core charge through batteries plus though, so if you have some old scrap batteries lying around you can use them for the cores)

https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/sli24agmdp

I don't run any radios or stuff like that, just need batteries for starting power, so the Northstars though Batteries plus are the route I'm planning to take.

You could also set up some type of battery isolator for the pair under the back seat, so that those are the ones running all the radios and stuff, while not touching the power stored in the starting batteries. It sounds like you want to play with radios and winches and stuff out in the boonies, so having 2 sets of batteries might not be a bad idea if you're going out by yourself.


But to reiterate, yes, if you want to stick with batteries just under the seat, you won't find anything better than the odysseys in the civilian market.



On another note, the 31 series battery is a little longer than the 6t battery, but several people on the forums have said they have managed to make them fit in the stock battery location running them different directions, the Northstar version has 1150CCA, 220 minutes reserve capacity, and 100 amp hours. Only have the 4 year warranty through batteries plus instead of 5 like the group 24, and cost just over $400 each, but they are about as close to the 6TAGM specs as you'll get short of buying the Odyssey. (still get 10% off ordering online, so actual price is $370ish before core charge)

https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/sli31agmdpm

 

[Mogman]

Does anyone have pictures of how the group 31 batteries are positioned in the battery box?

 

[diluted]

I ended up replacing my dead hawkers with Otpima batteries and used the 6T adapter plate very happy with the result.

 

[Mogman]

I have read SO many bad reviews on Optima batteries since Johnson Controls bought them out, whether true or not I am not willing to take that chance, I have seen this play out so many times where someone buys out a quality product then just makes as much profit as possible while running the product into the ground, I am only 61 but I have never seen a product improve after being bought out.

 

[TOBASH]

I have read SO many bad reviews on Optima batteries since Johnson Controls bought them out, whether true or not I am not willing to take that chance, I have seen this play out so many times where someone buys out a quality product then just makes as much profit as possible while running the product into the ground, I am only 61 but I have never seen a product improve after being bought out.

When Optima moved out of USA I moved away from buying Optima.

I buy American.

Buying USA protects USA. Buying domestic employs our brothers and sisters and strengthens our democracy and our citizens.

Best,

T

 

[Mogman]

Well I did flips and twists, lost a little sleep, looked at it from many angles then today I committed and ordered 2 Odyssey PC2250 batteries...

 

[Coug]

while the cost might be a little upsetting, I doubt you'll find any reason to be unhappy with the batteries themselves.

 

[Mogman]

while the cost might be a little upsetting, I doubt you'll find any reason to be unhappy with the batteries themselves.

One of the employees where I work paid over $400.00 for their Jeep battery because it was in the passenger compartment so I don't feel too bad, that's one of the issues with getting old, I can remember when you could buy a Sears Diehard, at the time the best battery made for less than $40.00

 

[Mogman]

I got them into the battery box last night, they will not go in as the diagram shows as they are not quite square, this puts the handles on the side the hold down grips, this will require some modification to the battery hold down fixture, I will post pics when I get it done.

 

[donquijote]

I got them into the battery box last night, they will not go in as the diagram shows as they are not quite square, this puts the handles on the side the hold down grips, this will require some modification to the battery hold down fixture, I will post pics when I get it done.

I typically don't mod my Humvees off of stock, but this is one adjustment I made, which I do like and works well. I slice 1.5" wide cuts with the dremel and feed the same width velcro straps. It's as rock solid as the factory bars and eliminates all that extra crap in the way.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[Mogman]

I notched the OEM bracket, worked like a charm, I decided not to put the battery switch facing the rear passenger, like many before me I removed the slave connector, punched out an aluminum plate and that is where I put the switch.

 

[diluted]

Funny that I had just posted in this thread about my otpimas and had an "oops".

I was hooking my ibis tek light bar up and I dropped one of the battery hold down bolts and it arc'd against the positive terminal and body of the HMMWV. Had some smoke coming out from the vehicle light switch area so quickly went to disconnect that. All lights work, hmmwv starts, but I think I might have killed the ibis tek controller since I have no output from that now

 

[Mogman]

Bummer!

 

[Mogman]

I picked up another PC2250 for the #2 project, it will be running separate 12 and 24V system and I found one unused and 6mo old for about half price so I grabbed it.
Well I was looking over the specs on the Odyssey site and just about had a cow, the max operating temp for the PC2250 was listed at 104 deg F,,
So I fired off a message asking them what was wrong with them?? nobody would design an automotive battery for only 104F, I mean we get days here of up to 115F ambient, not to say this is hell but you can certainly see it from here... And that does not even come close to "under hood" applications.
Following was the response, makes me feel MUCH better about this rather large investment in a "perishable" item..

Sorry to alarm you, but that specification is a misprint.

We recently took a look at all of our models and are updating the literature accordingly.

The PC2250 has a maximum operating range of 176*F, just like all other Extreme series batteries.

I am not sure why it was ever listed lower than the rest. Before my time here.


Sorry for the confusion.



Alan Kohler

Marketing Manager

ODYSSEY Battery

 

[teletech]

Indeed, back in the day when Optimas were made in Sweden or wherever it was, I bought some that were the best-by far of any lead-acid batteries I've owned, before or since. Once they moved production/got bought out they went downhill fast and the last one I had I warrantied, twice, before the year was out and didn't last too long after the warranty period. The Odyssey have been good performers for me, but are pretty fragile in terms of resistance to any overcharging. Get a little too much voltage on them and they do outgas and loose capacity pretty quickly.
If one wants to run radio gear and get a true deep-cycle setup with excellent density, it's time to dump the lead-acid batteries and go lithium.
LiFePO4 is more money than the typical lithium batteries but is a lot safer and has more compatible charge/discharge voltage for automotive applications, though if you are going 24V, you could build a 7S lithium ion setup but they aren't really safe to center-tap, so dc-dc is the only way to get 12VDC. Anyway, lithium batteries are a quantum-leap forward over lead-acid in terms of it's ability to be actually deep-cycled, the number of cycles it will last, and energy density (not to mention weight). Recently a number of manufacturers have started selling integrated battery systems with decent BMS so they will limit charging and discharging as well as cell-balance to protect and prolong the life of the battery. Also interesting is the fact at least one manufacturer has a Bluetooth-enabled battery so you can monitor battery state from your device and also turn it on or off, handy alternative to a key switch!

Just as one example I notice the "Battle-Born" 100AH battery for sale, $1000/each. On paper it's lass capacity than the Odyssey the OP mentions,but since Lead-acid are rated on the ideal discharge curve you don't get anything like that 126AH in practice without damaging the batteries, more like 50-60% while you can easily go to 90% at any reasonable rate on the lithium. Oh, they are also smaller and 1/3 the weight!