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Battery Question (yes, another one)


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1 hour ago, Loddon said:

On this forum there is a lot of irrelevant rubbish talked about tail current as the way of telling batteries are fully charged.

Its only relevant if you are trying to minimise the charging/engine run time.

For anyone that is cruising a reasonable amount (4-6hrs every day) and spends the rest of the time on shore power it is irrelevant as (unless they have a faulty charging system) their batteries will be nigh on 100% every evening.

Strikes me that some people on here like to blame their monitoring equipment for shortcomings in their battery management regime.

 

Also pretty much irrelevant if they have 40 watts plus of solar and a decent controller, even without shore power. However tying up for several days without charging on the grounds you have solar is a recipe for shorter battery life unless you have got lots of solar and its summer.

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15 minutes ago, sirweste said:

So in summary. The OP has most likely been charging his batteries to max capacity. It's likely bugger all to do with the SmartGauge. And he has a duff battery.

Absolutely. 2.5 years with bog standard LAs is not bad going so it’s unsurprising that one has now escaped this mortal coil. 

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Absolutely. 2.5 years with bog standard LAs is not bad going so it’s unsurprising that one has now escaped this mortal coil. 

And it may well have been far less time if the OP did not have a Smartguage to encourage him to minimise his discharge and charge to close to 100%  each day they are cruising.

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3 hours ago, WotEver said:

Absolutely. 2.5 years with bog standard LAs is not bad going so it’s unsurprising that one has now escaped this mortal coil. 

Yep. I am happy with two years, my last set lasted two an a half but I do change mine when they start to struggle. At two years that's around fifty pence a day in fact it's less than that and no messing about naming them or giving them a drink, life is way too short. Fit, use, bin, replace just like diesel. Maintenance free ?. As I've said before if I messed about with them or bought some named after a soldier bloke from yesteryear And checked em every few days etc etc I could maybe save a massive amount of money on my fifty pence a day ?

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Wow!   You go away for a day and look what happens...

 

Thanks everyone for your contributions, every day is a school day and even with a certain divergence of opinion I have learned a lot.  I am reluctant to change all of the batteries just yet - apart from anything else, lifting them out of the engine 'ole is a complete bu**er!

 

I am going to take the duff one out and take it back to Bardens and ask their opinion on the basis that I may get a discount on a replacement (I can dream). I may just run with three until they all eventually die then replace the whole lot in one go.

 

I am also going to have a look at my charger and see if it needs replacement with something better.

 

Thanks everyone.

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3 x 135 Ah of Battery bank should be more than enough for most boaters useage, which probably tends to be between about 70Ah a day, and 120Ah a day.

 

If on shore power or travelling with the engine running for several hours a day, your batteries should be pretty much fully charged every day and, even if you use say 60Ah overnight when travelling, your batteries shouldn’t fall below about 85%. Even if they are depleted to say half their original capacity, they still shouldn’t fall below about 70%.

 

Might have another 2.5 years in your bank of 3 before needing new ones.

Edited by Richard10002
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22 hours ago, WotEver said:

A recipe for disaster?  You do have a way of dramatising things, don’t you?  What happens to a battery on float for days on end, do you even know? I’ll tell you, it gets fully charged. So how is a fully charged battery disastrous?  His batteries are already 2.5 years old which is pretty good going for bog standard leisures. I don’t see any ‘disaster’ anywhere in OP’s scenario. 

I said you wouldn’t agree, so you haven’t disappointed :) In this instant you may be correct.

 

When I came here in 2010, I read lots of posts which suggested that Smartgauge was a great tool on its own... as good as a fuel gauge which tells SOC at a glance. I bought one, didn’t read all of the manual, believed what I had read more than a few times, and this contributed to knackering my batteries.

 

I don’t want anyone to make the same mistake.... if its your opinion that I overdo it, but this saves one person from treating it as a fuel gauge with a resolution accurate to 1%, and knackering their Batteries prematurely, I’m fine with that.

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18 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Can you tell if it needs replacing by just looking at it? ;)

Oh dear...

 

Figure of speech - briefly, a phrase or word having different meanings than its literal meanings. 

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33 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

We do them in the Vetinarians Hospital..........by a quack who's gone to the dogs.

 

25 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Is that where the duck fits in??

 

 

 

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgery. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, Cuddles has passed away."

The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?  "Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied. "How can you be so sure," she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a large black Labrador Retriever.  As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog, took it out, and returned a few moments later with a beautiful cat.

The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.

The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "£150", she cried, "£150 just to tell me my duck is dead" The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been £20, but what with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan
....

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A chaps wife was in hospital having a baby whilst he was at home. He was on tenterhooks so he thought he'd phone the hospital to find out how she was doing. He phoned the wrong number by mistake and got a terrible shock. He'd got the tail end of the cricket test match results instead, which ran, ''They're all out and the last one was a duck.

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