You will find A LOT of different opinions on this subject. Personally, I chose to upgrade my battery and went with an optima blue top 34 series. I didn't want to deal with two batteries, either parallel or with an isolator. I have more than enough juice to run stereo, lights, winch. I carry an antigravity jump starter just in case tho!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Check my post on the other forum by boilermkr.

 

The Polaris OEM winch battery system includes 2 12v 30 AH AGM batteries connected in parallel. The resulting power is thus 12v 60 AH.

I am researching for lighter and higher power (AH) batteries; including lithium.

The batteries only charge when the vehicle is in motion by regenerative braking (includes braking. slowing down and going down hill). To add supplemental charging you have 2 options:
- splicing into the 12v external input that powers the onboard Delta Q charger and wiring to a separate charger for the winch batteries OR
- installing a dedicated solar charging system for the winch batteries.

I chose to install the Battery Minder SCC-15 solar panel and charger/controller/maintainer/desulfator. I mounted the solar panel on my Seizmik hood rack and the charger unit on the right hand firewall horizontal frame rail.

 

Thanks James, EV and DJ for the replies, I didn't stir up nearly the controversy I expected.

James: I, like you, have an aversion to parallel batteries. I once had a diesel pickup with parallel batteries, and they led to many problems.

I think I am going with this: VMAX MB96 60 Group 22nF AGM Deepcycle 12V 60AH Battery Upgrade from Gel to AGM | eBay
I will mount it in a custom battery box. I looked at Li-ion but found them, while much lighter, very expensive it this size category.

I found good application data on the VMAX web site, and this is their recommended battery for this size winch (and it coincides with the Polaris dual battery rating): VMAX Technical & Applications Charts

I will go with this charger: http://www.amazon.com/BatteryMINDer...ref=pd_sim_263_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=092GG57MKZEJBHHSCEDR#product-description-iframe

 

2013 800 full size
I have a group 24 marine battery in the the storage tub under the driver seat.

Du