Snappy Batteries Review
Time for one of our Off Grid Power Geek specialties; that is, a review of a leisure battery.
This one is a dual purpose lead-acid battery, meaning it’s for both starting power and auxiliary power.
If you’re a regular on this site, you’ll know we extoll the virtues of LiFePO4 leisure batteries over lead-acid batteries of all kinds.
Does it still make sense to get a battery like this?
We’ll let you know.
It’s not made by an uber-famous brand, and yet it’s become the top selling deep cycle battery in the UK over the last year.
We’ll talk about the brand and see if its worthy of its status.
Welcome to our Snappy Batteries Review. Read on!
By the way, you can check best price and specs from Amazon right here.
Snappy Leisure Battery 130Ah
- Capacity: 130Ah
- CCA: 950
- Dimensions: 35.4L x 17.5W x 19H cm
- Weight: 21kg
How did we analyse the Snappy 130Ah battery in this review?
We rated it for:
- Starting power performance
- Longer-term performance to power electronics like trolling motor, lights, GPS and radio
- Build quality
- Ease of transport – with particular attention given to its weight and size compared to other batteries of its capacity
- Any special technologies incorporated that may have associated benefits and drawbacks
- Value for money
- Analysis of its battery type, and whether other types may be more suitable for some applications
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Rating the Snappy Battery
What were the pros and cons of this dual purpose battery?
Snappy Battery
What we liked about this 12V battery:
Solid performance at both starting and auxiliary power
Surely the most important factor; you’re most likely buying a dual purpose battery for a reason. And its starting power is pretty huge. 950CCA is a ton of starting power, more than enough for even big vans. And it handles sustained power discharge to electronics as well as you’d expect a good-quality lead-acid lesiure battery to.
Impressive starts in cold temperatures
We’re impressed with its starting power in cold weather. That’s likely testament to the calcium technology of this battery. That means it has better cold-cranking performance than the equivalent size of normal lead-acid batteries, or even AGM batteries or gel batteries.
Relatively good chance of a long lifespan – for a lead-acid battery
This is a good quality calcium battery, and that means as well as higher starting power, you also get a low rate of self-discharge. It’ll cope better with time spent not being used. But let’s be clear, it can’t compared with an LiFePO4 battery, which can go as much as a year or more in storage and still work without problems.
Cons and why it may not be the right option for you:
Doesn’t cope well with being completely discharge
Lead-acid batteries hate being fully discharged, and you really should try to limit even 70-80% discharges. But that’s even more true with a calcium battery, like this Snappy Start battery. So yes, it gives you the benefit of much lower self-discharge compared to standard lead-acid batteries. But it can punish you more severely if you do let it fully discharge too often.
You’ll need a charger that can deliver a high voltage charge
When charging a calcium battery like this, you need to make sure it’s a model of charger with enough juice. Ideally, you want to give it a voltage of around 14.4 to 14.8V. If you’ve only got an old or a relatively weak charger, you may need to get a new one if you get the Snappy battery. Otherwise, you won’t be able to give it enough voltage to get fully charged and its lifespan will be severely reduced.
Where can you get it?
Check it out on Amazon right here.
Snappy Battery Review Summary
Hope this review helps with your decision.
As you read, it’s a good all-rounder, with impressive starting power and can handle long periods of discharge well. That’s exactly what you want from a dual purpose battery.
Its calcium technology is one of the reasons for its big power, and that’ll also give you a big advantage in terms of low self-discharge, if you may be leaving it unused for a while.
Just try not to let it get too discharged, calcium batteries are quite sensitive to that. And make sure you have a fairly modern charger that has a high enough voltage to charge it.
See the lowest cost way to buy, on Amazon here.
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