Batteries depleting.

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, Bee said:

Batteries are horrible things. If only they had a lid so you could open the top and have a look to see if they were full or empty. What most of us don't realise is just how long it takes to charge a couple or three batteries. On Bee we have 2 x 110 AH batteries - or that is what they were 4 years ago, it takes 4 or 5 hours to charge them from the engine and no doubt you could squeeze a bit more in from a decent charger. We look after them and don't flatten them or they will play tricks like saying they are charged when in fact they are scrap. We now have a bit of solar (not much, just one panel of 30 watts????) and I think it is brilliant, it saves batteries from death and although it cannot power the boat it works all the daylight hours. This summer I will add another one. 

 

The ones I used to work on didn't have tops...

[nb Innisfree]

45 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Quite. 

 

ISTR reading the Trojan battery instructions and they say something to the effect of "Recharge the battery after every discharge".  Utterly impractical in the real world as putting back the top 1% of charge your fridge just took out of the batteries, takes hours.

 

And full recharging is not going to happen before the fridge needs to run again, so that instruction is rarely likely to be met on a boat in regular use, especially not a liveaboard.

 

 

Once we were on a hook up and Victron was on charger only, ie no output from batts, it took 72 hrs to go from from 80% to 100% SoC before charge stabilised, approx 0.2 amps  @24v. 

Edited February 23 by nb Innisfree

[ditchcrawler]

4 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

Once we were on a hook up and Victron was on charger only, ie no output from batts, it took 72 hrs to go from from 80% to 100% SoC before charge stabilised, approx 0.2 amps  @24v. 

At 24 volts?

4 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

Once we were on a hook up and Victron was on charger only, ie no output from batts, it took 72 hrs to go from from 80% to 100% SoC before charge stabilised, approx 0.2 amps  @24v. 

At 24 volts?

5 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

Once we were on a hook up and Victron was on charger only, ie no output from batts, it took 72 hrs to go from from 80% to 100% SoC before charge stabilised, approx 0.2 amps  @24v. 

This may be a repeat as the last reply just disappeared.

At 24 volts? 

[nb Innisfree]

6 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

At 24 volts?

At 24 volts?

This may be a repeat as the last reply just disappeared.

At 24 volts? 

Wierd, yes 24v

Just now, nb Innisfree said:

Wierd, yes 24v

I blame Alien interference 

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, nb Innisfree said:

A few hours to replace power used maybe, but it takes a minimum of 24hrs to fully recharge so in reality if batts are used they will never reach a full charge, at best just a slow deterioration. 

 

You don't use power from batteries, you use energy.

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, nb Innisfree said:

Wierd, yes 24v

I blame Alien interference 

If that voltage is correct something somewhere is wrong.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, nb Innisfree said:

Wierd, yes 24v

I blame Alien interference 

 

Should have needed at least 26.0v to get you to 100% SoC, assuming you have a 24v boat.

[nb Innisfree]

18 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Should have needed at least 26.0v to get you to 100% SoC, assuming you have a 24v boat.

Probably, can't recall exactly, 29.2v? (8x 120ah AGM - didn't dare go over 14.6v per batt) 

It was 15 yrs ago and boat was sold in 2015. 

1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

You don't use power from batteries, you use energy.

 

 

Ooo you technical thing you. 

40 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

If that voltage is correct something somewhere is wrong.

Why? 

 

Penny just dropped, I meant boat was fitted with 12v batts wired in series/parallel to give 24v, should have said full charge was reached at 0.2 amps @29.2v

Edited February 23 by nb Innisfree

[ditchcrawler]

20 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

 Penny just dropped, I meant boat was fitted with 12v batts wired in series/parallel to give 24v, should have said full charge was reached at 0.2 amps @29.2v

Thank goodness for that 

[nb Innisfree]

10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Thank goodness for that 

Close shave eh? 

[blackrose]

4 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Quite. 

 

ISTR reading the Trojan battery instructions and they say something to the effect of "Recharge the battery after every discharge".  Utterly impractical in the real world as putting back the top 1% of charge your fridge just took out of the batteries, takes hours.

 

And full recharging is not going to happen before the fridge needs to run again, so that instruction is rarely likely to be met on a boat in regular use, especially not a liveaboard.

 

Rarely? I guess so, unless the boat happens to be connected to shore power with a battery charger switched on. That's a pretty common situation for many liveaboards in marinas whose batteries are instantly charged to 100% as soon as any discharge occurs. Likewise boats with sufficient solar panels on days when the weather is fine. I appreciate that lots of boats' batteries will never be fully charged for the reasons you describe, but I don't agree that fully charged batteries are rare on boats.

Edited February 23 by blackrose

[LadyG]

9 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Rarely? I guess so, unless the boat happens to be connected to shore power with a battery charger switched on. That's a pretty common situation for many liveaboards in marinas whose batteries are instantly charged to 100% as soon as any discharge occurs. Likewise boats with sufficient solar panels on days when the weather is fine. I appreciate that lots of boats' batteries will never be fully charged for the reasons you describe, but I don't agree that fully charged batteries are rare on boats.

I am amazed that even in this day and age plenty of boats sit tied to the cut, "cc", and have no solar,  I guess they are used mostly on summer weekends, 

On 04/01/2024 at 22:39, Karen Louise said:

I am connected to a shoreline. There are 3 leisure batteries. 

When you say three leisure batteries do you mean they are all on one battery bank.

Many boats have one starter battery which could be agm, no maintenance needed. It usually has its own isolated switch.

Plus two flooded lead acid which need topped up with distilled water to the level of the plates. They could be wired together creating a larger battery bank, again with its own isolater switch, the domestic bank.

To me leisure battery is a casual name for a battery not suited to a starter battery .

 

Edited February 24 by LadyG

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, LadyG said:

I am amazed that even in this day and age plenty of boats sit tied to the cut, "cc", and have no solar,  I guess they are used mostly on summer weekends, 

 

To me leisure battery is a casual name for a battery not suited to a starter battery .

 

They are the ones who say they have to turn the fridge off at night or it shuts down, they have about 4 batteries in the bank rated at 110Akh but their actual capacity is down to a total of 60Ah at 18 months old 
 

To me a leisure battery is often nothing more than a heavy duty starter battery, lots even have cranking amps on them.