Deep cycle and lead acid charging

[daniel944]

I have 4 batteries in my garage, 3x lead acide (2 in cars and 1 in boat for outboard) and 1 deep cycle for the electric. It occured to me the other day that this represents about $600 worth of batteries! I know to keep them alive I have to trickle charge them when not in use, but I also seem to remember that Deep cycle and Lead acid require different types of charging and maintance.

What can other raiders suggest?

[mike82]

I have 4 batteries in my garage, 3x lead acide (2 in cars and 1 in boat for outboard) and 1 deep cycle for the electric. It occured to me the other day that this represents about $600 worth of batteries! I know to keep them alive I have to trickle charge them when not in use, but I also seem to remember that Deep cycle and Lead acid require different types of charging and maintance.

What can other raiders suggest?

What type (construction) of deep cycle battery is it? Deep cycle batteries can be in the form of standard lead acid / Absorbed glass matt / gel / calcium constructions.

That is where the difference comes in, not so much that it is a deep cycle battery in itself.

I would recommend (although a bit expensive) a quality Ctek charger. Most of these ( you will need to select one based on CCA or Amp Hours of your biggest battery) can be changed by a simple press of the button to suit the different constructions, and are designed to give the battery the correct charge as well as maintaining it for optimum performance.

Hope this helps a bit.

[daniel944]

Hi Aquaman

Its a calcium battery. Ideally I would like one charger that I can hook all 4 batteries up to and then have them charged from a solar cell on the roof.

Cheers

Daniel

[mike82]

Hi Aquaman

Its a calcium battery. Ideally I would like one charger that I can hook all 4 batteries up to and then have them charged from a solar cell on the roof.

Cheers

Daniel

Whilst you could have all batteries hooked up at once you can run into dramas with all the the batteries being different sizes (CCA and a/h) ratings, and calcium alongside led acid (calcium batteries like a higher and longer charge rate than a standard led acid).

You might find that the calcium never reaches a true full charge. The age and condition of each individual battery will also effect results.

When joining all batteries together like this the "bank" will only be as good as the lowest battery, create an imbalance and drag all the others down to its level. I wouldn't suggest running them all off just a solar panel as this will not condition the batteries in storage just charge them when the sun is out. To do this you would also need a solar regulator to regulate the voltage being supplied to avoid "boiling" the batteries but once again would be better suited to a bank of batteries that are all alike.

You might be better off running each individual led acid battery off their own basic charger/maintainer (you might get away with paring the two car batteries up if they are very similar) and running a ctek on the calcium deep cycle especially if your running an electric motor off it and flattening it out often.

Once the charger goes into matinence mode it will draw very little power and can/should be left plugged in "maintaining" the battery.

Whilst solar is great, unfortunately with multiple batteries of different sizes like this application I wouldn't recommend it to keep the batteries in optimum condition.

Just an idea...

[piratesgold]

And never leave/store them on a concrete floort, apparently it does something wierd and damages them, keep them on a shelf, duckboard, upturned milkcrate, bench or something

Pirate

[Kram]

And never leave/store them on a concrete floort, apparently it does something wierd and damages them, keep them on a shelf, duckboard, upturned milkcrate, bench or something

Pirate

Hi Pirate and Raiders,

I have heard this about concrete and batteries before but have never been able to get an explanation as to why.

Can anyone confirm this and provide a reasonable explanation?

Regards

Kram

[mike82]

Hi Pirate and Raiders,

I have heard this about concrete and batteries before but have never been able to get an explanation as to why.

Can anyone confirm this and provide a reasonable explanation?

Regards

Kram

There is a link to one school of thought in this thread HERE

I still won't put my batteries on concrete though.

In the mountains it can get quite cold at night and hot during the day, I think that the temperature difference between the concrete and ambient temperature might have something to do with it? But not proven in any any way other than personal experience.

It may Just be a myth too!