I am trying to restore it to the condition of the others by adding a charger limited to 7.38V and 1.5 A when bank charging may occur and removing it when bank charging is not likely. Are there better settings? The second problem is that the battery that set idle longest initially has a higher self discharge and requires additional charging. The sg at apparent full charge fell so I repeated the continuous charge one string at a time till a sg of 1.3 was reached, then set the charge voltage to 2.458V/cell with a float of 2.366V/cell but I still have to manually restore them to sg of 1.3 by prolonging the 2.485V/cell one string at a time. I charged them at 7.2V (after temperature compensation to 25C) till the sg reached 1.3 and put them is service as 2 24V strings with PV charger. When I got them home I discovered that they had a sticker indicating the month of charge and one was 4 months old but the others were not over 1 month. Last fall I purchased 8 Exide golf cart batteries. BU-806a: How Heat and Loading affect Battery Life.BU-415: How to Charge and When to Charge?.The following papers summarize what batteries like and dislike. Each battery system has unique needs in terms of charging, depth of discharge and loading that should be observed. Most of these can be reduced by proper handling.Īs battery care-giver, you have choices in how to prolong battery life. These conditions are found under: Corrosion, Shedding and internal Short, Sulfation and How to Prevent it, and Water Loss, Acid Stratification and Surface Charge. While the depletion of the active material is well understood and can be calculated, a lead acid battery suffers from other infirmities long before plate- and grid-deterioration sound the death knell. (BCI stands for Battery Council International.) The organization conducts a study every 5 years to determine the failure modes of batteries that have been removed from service. The report does not provide reasons for the larger wear and tear other than to assume that higher demands on the starter battery in modern cars induce added stress. According to the 2010 BCI Failure Modes Study, plate/grid-related breakdown has increased from 30 percent 5 years ago to 39 percent today. The primary reason for the relatively short cycle life of a lead acid battery is depletion of the active material. If at all possible, operate at moderate temperature and avoid deep discharges charge as often as you can(See BU-403: Charging Lead Acid) If the charge cycle does not allow this, give the battery a fully saturated charge once every few weeks. To keep lead acid in good condition, apply a fully saturated charge lasting 14 to 16 hours. Some applications allow lower capacity thresholds but the time for retirement should never fall below 50 percent as aging may hasten once past the prime. Replacement should occur when the capacity drops to 70 or 80 percent. The full cranking power is available from the beginning, although CCA will go up slightly with formatting in early use(See BU-701: How to Prime Batteries)Ī deep-cycle battery delivers 100–200 cycles before a gradual decline begins. Starter batteries are less critical and do not need priming. During breaking-in, manufacturers recommend going easy on the battery. They require 20–50 full cycles to reach peak capacity and field usage does this. The three phases of a battery are formatting, peak and decline.įormatting is most important for deep-cycle batteries. As the electrodes activate, the capacity gradually increases. Exercising the plates allows the absorption of electrolyte, much like squeezing and releasing a hardened sponge. In the formatting phase, the plates are in a sponge-like condition surrounded by liquid electrolyte. Explore what causes corrosion, shedding, electrical short, sulfation, dry-out, acid stratification and surface chargeĪ lead acid battery goes through three life phases: formatting, peak and decline ( Figure 1).
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