Knackered battery

[Tim M]

One of my batteries has lost the ability to hold a decent charge. I was in Halfords yesterday and saw a product that you put in the battery where the water goes and it gives the battery a new lease of life. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of product? Is it too good to be true?

[The Garfish]

Originally Posted by Tim M

Does anyone have any experience of this sort of product?

yus. itts corld battiry assid


gaRf

[Ian Sharlot]

Originally Posted by The Garfish

yus. itts corld battiry assid


gaRf

[Poly]

Tim, I think it depends whats wrong with the battery...

How "clever" is the charger you are using on the battery? IMHO a sophisticated charger is more likely to "recondition" a dodgy battery - but its usually cheaper to replace the battery than buy a specialist charger - unless you are doing this regularly.

[chewy]

The stuff your on about will work on a dodgy battery but not a completely shagged one.
What voltage are you getting?

[Downhilldai]

Batteries don't tend to like this cold weather.
Is the boat kept outside?

[Tim M]

The stuff I saw was a pack of little tablet things.

The boat lives in the water hence the battery lives in a cold damp environment. It's only charge is normally from the engine. I charged it up the other day on a ctek charger but now its only kicking out about 7 volts.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Tim M

I charged it up the other day on a ctek charger but now its only kicking out about 7 volts.

Sounds knackered to me.

What was it reading when it was freshly charged? and after a few hours?

Even if the sulfate tablets get you back to normal voltage - it will happen again and you'll have no idea how long it will resucitate it for. That's at least a PITA and possible a call to the RNLI on a boat - so time to replace it.

[chewy]

Its goosed mate, should be 14.2v fully charged and about 12v flat.

[Doug Stormforce]

Originally Posted by Tim M

I was in Halfords

Not the cheapest of outlets Tim

[Tim M]

I know, although Partco weren't significantly less.

[chewy]

Try and get one with a decent no quibble warranty, I got mine and took it back to the local place, replaced free of charge even though it was a knackered solar panel which goosed it.

[Nasher]

Originally Posted by chewy

Try and get one with a decent no quibble warranty, I got mine and took it back to the local place, replaced free of charge even though it was a knackered solar panel which goosed it.

That is a good thing about Halfords, they are not to know you've not been using it in a car.

Nasher.

[chewy]

Mine were adament I told them what car it was going on so they could supply the right battery. I told em it was for a Orkney Longliner and they just put boat on my receipt, still replaced it no questions asked.

[jyasaki]

Originally Posted by chewy

Its goosed mate, should be 14.2v fully charged and about 12v flat.

That sounds a little high, considering the max safe charging voltage is about 14.6 or so.

More like 12.6V at 100% and about 11.8 to 12V at a 50% discharge.

Run it fully flat as a general rule, and you'll be wearing a path to your local battery supplier.


jky

[chewy]

Oops my mistake.

[Stoo]

Originally Posted by Downhilldai

Batteries don't tend to like this cold weather.
Is the boat kept outside?

I try to put mine on the charger every week when the boat is idle in the fall. Now that it's in storage, I have put the batteries indoors, and a top them up oncea month or so...

[PeterM]

I'm the same as Stoo- I thought one of mine was knackered in the summer - turns out the main switches had corroded to the point where they were causing a lot of resistance - not charging properly & so not turning the opti fast enough to get it to POP at the plugs.

[al40]

I would recommend energy batteries (energy squadron). Customer service is amazing. After I stupidly hacked the top off a sealed lead acid battery which was sold to me as non sealed (instructions said take caps off before running conditioning charge), contacted energy to point out the misleading instructions and they sent me a new battery no questions asked!

In terms of charger, it's worth getting a good charger to give you battery a bit of a pamper once in a while. I got a Ring 4 stage charger a few years back ( see http://www.ringautomotive.co.uk/prod...t2=31&cat3=167) and it has sucesfully re-conditioned 3 "dead" batteries including a car lead acid that was completely flattened 3 times by wife not closing the boot properly.... I try and charge the boat battery with this a couple of times a year just to top it up anf give it a proper charge.

[jambo]

Originally Posted by al40

I would recommend energy batteries (energy squadron). Customer service is amazing. After I stupidly hacked the top off a sealed lead acid battery which was sold to me as non sealed (instructions said take caps off before running conditioning charge), contacted energy to point out the misleading instructions and they sent me a new battery no questions asked!

In terms of charger, it's worth getting a good charger to give you battery a bit of a pamper once in a while. I got a Ring 4 stage charger a few years back ( see http://www.ringautomotive.co.uk/prod...t2=31&cat3=167) and it has sucesfully re-conditioned 3 "dead" batteries including a car lead acid that was completely flattened 3 times by wife not closing the boot properly.... I try and charge the boat battery with this a couple of times a year just to top it up anf give it a proper charge.

Yea i am the same as Al , I have two squadron 120ah batteries and one was goosed this autumn they are giving me 50% discount even although it was out od warranty. Also agree with the charging regime, especially if you are leaving it on the water with the pump taking juice over a long time it does not take long to flat out over a long spell of rain.
J