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Replacing leisure batteries


Tony ralph

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16 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You can still get those.  My mate just acquired a new one and fitted it in some old Rolls Royce he has lying around in his workshop. 

Yes, Shield batteries, up the road from here will build them to order too.  Same with tyres for old veteran and vintage vehicles. At a COST though.

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24 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

My mate just acquired a new one and fitted it in some old Rolls Royce he has lying around in his workshop. 

As you do...

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4 hours ago, bizzard said:

In 1975 batteries had lovely cell connectors on top, ideal for testing bulbs and things of different voltages, and could be used for speed controlling on 12v model railways.    They also had proper tangible stopper knobs.

I must say this is all good Reading and your all very clever in your field and knowledge I've been glued to my phone with all these comments. Over last two days very interesting

 I do know batteries have improved since 1975 some batteries carry fuzzy Logic so I'm led to believe I am taking onboard what you all are saying quite unbelievable really how people take batteries for granted as I did myself and I am listening to

wotever has been saying 

All great suff Dr bob 

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46 minutes ago, Tony ralph said:

I must say this is all good Reading and your all very clever in your field and knowledge I've been glued to my phone with all these comments. Over last two days very interesting

 I do know batteries have improved since 1975 some batteries carry fuzzy Logic so I'm led to believe I am taking onboard what you all are saying quite unbelievable really how people take batteries for granted as I did myself and I am listening to

wotever has been saying 

All great suff Dr bob 

Me.....!! I'm just a muppet.

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6 hours ago, Tony ralph said:

I must say this is all good Reading and your all very clever in your field and knowledge I've been glued to my phone with all these comments. Over last two days very interesting

 I do know batteries have improved since 1975 some batteries carry fuzzy Logic so I'm led to believe I am taking onboard what you all are saying quite unbelievable really how people take batteries for granted as I did myself and I am listening to

wotever has been saying 

All great suff Dr bob 

???

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I have worked with batteries all of my working career from 1972 to 2013. Everything from maintaining and commissioning them, to designing battery installation for telephone exchanges and data centres. Even so I still do not consider myself to know everything about them. Some aspects of extracting maximum performance and life from them remains a "black art"

 

Wotever is absolutely correct in saying that lead acid cells are secondary cells and that they shouldnt be regulary taken below 10.5 volts (for a 12 volt battery). He also accurately describes their failure modes.

 

The only significant improvement to lead acid batteries since 1975 has been the introduction of Valve Regulated Sealed Lead Acid batteries (recombination cells such as AGM and gel) circa 1980. The technology is very mature.

 

There is no "fuzzy logic" built into any lead acid batteries that I have every seen.

If the OP's batteries are falling to 10.5 volts every morning, then they have insufficient capacity for his needs (probably due to sulpation because of undercharging, or exceeding their design number of discharge/charge cycles) and should be replaced pronto. 

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5 hours ago, cuthound said:

I have worked with batteries all of my working career from 1972 to 2013. Everything from maintaining and commissioning them, to designing battery installation for telephone exchanges and data centres. Even so I still do not consider myself to know everything about them. Some aspects of extracting maximum performance and life from them remains a "black art"

 

Wotever is absolutely correct in saying that lead acid cells are secondary cells and that they shouldnt be regulary taken below 10.5 volts (for a 12 volt battery). He also accurately describes their failure modes.

 

The only significant improvement to lead acid batteries since 1975 has been the introduction of Valve Regulated Sealed Lead Acid batteries (recombination cells such as AGM and gel) circa 1980. The technology is very mature.

 

There is no "fuzzy logic" built into any lead acid batteries that I have every seen.

If the OP's batteries are falling to 10.5 volts every morning, then they have insufficient capacity for his needs (probably due to sulpation because of undercharging, or exceeding their design number of discharge/charge cycles) and should be replaced pronto. 

Cheers for that and thank you 

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5 hours ago, Ssscrudddy said:

& please don't discharge your new batteries to 10.5 volts, I don't care how much the guy knows, it will destroy your batteries very quickly. Don't discharge below 12.2V.

 

Indeed,  the attached table shows open circuit voltage (no load on the battery for at least 2 hours) as state of charge.

 

Best not to go below 50% SoC and always fully recharge your battery (tail current <2% of battery capacity at 14.4 volts for at least 45 minutes) if you want the battery to have a normal life expectancy.

 

 

voltchart1.gif

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As most of the "usual" unsealed batteries used on boats now have lead-calcium plates so do not gas as readily as lead-antinomy and they seem to use a larger liquid capacity above the plates even open cell lead-calcium batteries seem to be pretty much maintenance free until they start to fail or unless you regularly charge at over abut 14.7 volts. This is probably not true of the expensive ones that may still use lead-antinomy.

 

As you have to lift the things I would stick with the common 110 to 135 Ah capacity batteries.

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19 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

As most of the "usual" unsealed batteries used on boats now have lead-calcium plates so do not gas as readily as lead-antinomy and they seem to use a larger liquid capacity above the plates even open cell lead-calcium batteries seem to be pretty much maintenance free until they start to fail or unless you regularly charge at over abut 14.7 volts. This is probably not true of the expensive ones that may still use lead-antinomy.

 

As you have to lift the things I would stick with the common 110 to 135 Ah capacity batteries.

Cheers tony 

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When i got my boat end of Oct 13, the batts needed an awful lot of topping up all the time. I suspect already knackered batteries with me finishing them off good & proper over the next 3 weeks. By January they were gassing badly & got replaced.

I gave up checking the new batteries because they never needed topping up. Even now they have reached end of life & will be at 10.4V by the morning without using any electric, they still don't need topping up!

Edited by Ssscrudddy
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30 minutes ago, Ssscrudddy said:

When i got my boat end of Oct 13, the batts needed an awful lot of topping up all the time. I suspect already knackered batteries with me finishing them off good & proper over the next 3 weeks. By January they were gassing badly & got replaced.

I gave up checking the new batteries because they never needed topping up. Even now they have reached end of life & will be at 10.4V by the morning without using any electric, they still don't need topping up!

Exactly the same with me 10.4 by morning. With no use

We got our boat in February 12 batteries were knackered replace them after 8 weeks

 just replace them again yesterday with  Albion 120amp

Also to be fair I didn't check my sterling battery charger and it was set to charge  open lead acid batteries the ones I  replaced them with sealed lead acid . At that time not to glued up 

We learn everyday

 

Just now, Tony ralph said:

Exactly the same with me 10.4 by morning. With no use

We got our boat in February 12 batteries were knackered replace them after 8 weeks

 just replace them again yesterday with  Albion 120amp

Also to be fair I didn't check my sterling battery charger and it was set to charge  open lead acid batteries the ones I  replaced them with sealed lead acid . At that time not to glued up 

We learn everyday

 

Sorry got our  boat in 2014 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 25/05/2018 at 10:15, rusty69 said:

Some of it sticks:)

 

On 25/05/2018 at 10:15, rusty69 said:

Some of it sticks:)

Hi all 

Looking now for solar panels for my boat. Any recommendations make and model I'll be looking to use around 80 to 100 amps. A nite ? 

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