What is a Starting battery?

What is a Starting battery?

Starting batteries (sometimes called SLI, for starting, lighting, ignition) are commonly used to

start and run engines. Engine starters need a very large starting current for a very short time.

Starting batteries have a large number of thin plates for maximum surface area. The plates are

composed of a Lead "sponge", similar in appearance to a very fine foam sponge. This gives a very

large surface area, but if deep cycled, this sponge will quickly be consumed and fall to the

bottom of the cells. Automotive batteries will generally fail after 30-150 deep cycles if deep

cycled, while they may last for thousands of cycles in normal starting use (2-5% discharge).