In brief - all CA or CCA is . . is how many seconds a battery can provide a huge rush of current at a cold temperature. All it is .. is a short term "burst" rating. It does not mean an awful lot but . . A car or truck with a 12 volt system needs to stay at 9 volts or higher when the engine is cranking. Also a battery loses 1/2 its power at 0 degrees F. So the plan is - to have a battery with enough amps at 0 degrees F to make 300-400 amps available to the starter motor and glow plus (if diesel) at 0 degrees F. If 300 amps is needed at 0 degrees - then a 500- 600 amp CCA battery is needed. There is a lot of nonsense involved in the rating. CCA is a measurement of a 30 second burst of power all the way down to 7.2 volts and that is not very helpful. That since the battery needs to stay above 9 volts. If you load-test a brand new battery rated at 500 CCA - it will usually test at 250 amps @ 9 volts @ 70 degrees room temp. Can't say I've done the test at 0 degrees F.
Amp-hours (AH) or Reserve-Capacity (RC) both tell how much energy a battery can provide steadily over time. Car batteries are often rated by RC whereas deep-cycle batteries by AH. Both mean basically the same thing in the long run and you can convert one # to the other with math.
The third rating scale often not seen with car batteries is projected life cycles. Just about any company that makes deep-cycle batteries will give projection charts that basically tell how many times the batteries can be discharged, and recharged, before they are worn out.
The one factor that is pretty constant is battery weight. Just about always - the heavier the battery -the more power over time it will provide. All batteries sold for cars and trucks and storage banks have spec sheets showing weight somewhere.
There is also a more obscure 4th rating called the Self Discharge Rate. All batteries goe dead on their own as they sit without being charged. Even if hooked to nothing. Generally speaking, the more HD a battery is - the faster it goes dead. That because of more antimony used inside of it. Conventional lead-acid batteries with loose water/acid mix go dead faster then AGM (absorbed glass matt) batteries.
Also an even more obscure 5th rating. Voltage at a steady high amps and ability to keep above 10.5 volts. This is important when using a DC to AC inverter since inverters automatically shut down if DC power drops below 10.5 volts. Not all companies publish these numbers. Outback is one of the few that does.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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