How to select a 12v deep cycle battery [ampHours Explained]

When we set up a 4x4 for overlanding we want all our 12v accessories to run efficiently. To do this we need a good auxiliary battery as part of our dual battery setup so that our off road overland trips will be smooth as it can be. In most cases, this would be, a deep cycle battery. But choosing a good deep cycle battery may not be all that straight forward.

In many instances I have heard people ask why is my 12v battery capacity not enough. Another common question that gets asked is how to power a 12v camping fridge without any interruptions. The answers to the above questions is, you need to have a 12v deep cylce (or lithium) battery which has the correct  12v battery capacity to meet the needs of the load your accessories will put on your battery.

To achieve this a critical 12v battery specification is indicated in amp hours. What is an amp hour you ask. Well this is the amount of amps a battery can supply for an hour. Usually 12v battery manufacturers will provide this amp hours rating with the battery. In other words, how many hours the battery can supply if it was supplying 1amp per hour. Thus rating such as 100amh, 120amh, etc.

In this video I talk you through my thinking process when I had to select the appropriate 12v deep cycle battery for my overlanding 80 series Land Cruiser.

**Whilst in this video I talk of using a multimeter to work out the consumption or load rating, an easier to use tool would be a clamp meter.

Cheers!

Duncan Udawatta