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Nearly Killed My Car Battery Today!

keir

Well-known member
Messages
1,028
been running my system off my car battery for a while but when i needed a new alternater last year began worrying a bit so picked up a leisure battery off a custy but it seemed to be a dud so went back to running it off the car, well today it pretty much died!!!! so its on charge now but i had to get another brand new 110 leisure battery but seems i've not been charging it correctly.

apparently you have to flatten them completely then charge them for 3 days at no less than 11 amps, which will explain why my other one appeared to be a dud, i've been using an optimate that i use for my motorbike which only charges at 0.2-0.8 amps the old'un turned out to still be ok after load testing. just had to get a beefier charger

there's no point me putting a split charger on cause i only drag the trailor to work and back which is a round trip of 11 miles

 
leisure battery dont need to be flatten then re charged for 3 days atall, mine been in the van for 1 year without having to do that and still works fine,

 
Best bit of kit for batteries is a Swedish battery charger C tech Mxs 5.0 they are a 8 step charger for all types of 12v batts dry wet liesure they perform different sine wave charges over 8 cycles that give batts from 1.2 to 160ah a great little work out revived a few otherwise dead batts for me even put th e motorbike batt on once a year even after being on optimate through winter

 
leisure battery dont need to be flatten then re charged for 3 days atall, mine been in the van for 1 year without having to do that and still works fine,
no keirs right think you just miss read that rc has he states he's been charging with optimate motorcycle which is a trickle charger not like the alternator on a car that can pump some oomph into your batt in van so his advice is right give that liesure batt some serious grief and give it the good charge it will respond if its not too old
 
no keirs right think you just miss read that rc has he states he's been charging with optimate motorcycle which is a trickle charger not like the alternator on a car that can pump some oomph into your batt in van so his advice is right give that liesure batt some serious grief and give it the good charge it will respond if its not too old
in the post he said he had problems with battery then said apparently you have to flatten them completely then charge them for 3 days at no less than 11 amps, which will explain why my other one appeared to be a dud.

then he says he is using a motocycle charger.

 
Confused me now I read that has he as always charged the batt with the optimate bike charger in which case needs to drain a bit more then pump up the charge to get the battery back to its proper state a liesure batt will recover some other batteries won't we use the liesure batts in invertors for emergency lighting and have recovered a few mobility batts in the same way that a mate now uses for his canal barge

 
Confused me now I read that has he as always charged the batt with the optimate bike charger in which case needs to drain a bit more then pump up the charge to get the battery back to its proper state a liesure batt will recover some other batteries won't we use the liesure batts in invertors for emergency lighting and have recovered a few mobility batts in the same way that a mate now uses for his canal barge
looks like both of us confused then! lol

 
rc i think if like you, you keep it constantly charged with the a split charger its all good. but when you you start to use them like i do or like a trolley then by the advice i got today from the caravan guru man then yeah gotta drain em.

newb123, that beefier charger i got aswell is a 12 cycle mofo so its a proper kick ass charger, i reckon i'll do the same as you with the bike battery i'll give it a right good charge in a couple of weeks before its dragged out of hibernation. mine's notorious for kicking the **** outa the battery cause its a twin

 
The van alternator knocks out about 120-150 a giving a almost booster charge if you like over shorter periods like a fst charge hence why the batt doesn't die on short journeys the motorcycle charger amount to no charge against the liesure battery hence why the battery slowly died it got something but not the oomph batteries have a memory hence why it's best to discharge further otherwise the batt will always die at the same point in some cases then completely recharge if load meter shows good should be like a new one

 
well what it is i bought the optimate A for my bike and B cause apparently their for boats,caravans etc so there's me like "real do's 2 birds with one stone" but it must be bullsh*t cause even when i put the car on it it took like 2 days to say fully charged, i think their more of a tender rather than whacking loads of amps in,

 
The van alternator knocks out about 120-150 a giving a almost booster charge if you like over shorter periods like a fst charge hence why the batt doesn't die on short journeys the motorcycle charger amount to no charge against the liesure battery hence why the battery slowly died it got something but not the oomph batteries have a memory hence why it's best to discharge further otherwise the batt will always die at the same point in some cases then completely recharge if load meter shows good should be like a new one
bang on bud exactly what the guru said, my car is the same as your van. infact it has a stupid set up of intelligent charging where it wont charge for a while then when it picks up that battery is getting to a certain level....bang!!! it whacks like 18v at 120amps in for half an hour.

 
rc i think if like you, you keep it constantly charged with the a split charger its all good. but when you you start to use them like i do or like a trolley then by the advice i got today from the caravan guru man then yeah gotta drain em.
newb123, that beefier charger i got aswell is a 12 cycle mofo so its a proper kick ass charger, i reckon i'll do the same as you with the bike battery i'll give it a right good charge in a couple of weeks before its dragged out of hibernation. mine's notorious for kicking the **** outa the battery cause its a twin
oh right, cool,

 
well what it is i bought the optimate A for my bike and B cause apparently their for boats,caravans etc so there's me like "real do's 2 birds with one stone" but it must be bullsh*t cause even when i put the car on it it took like 2 days to say fully charged, i think their more of a tender rather than whacking loads of amps in,
did the same when I bought mine mate thought the hype was good but they ain't upto it good for winter on bikes low risk of battery damage but enough to hold the charge
 
my batteries from pure freedom in trolleys seem to die every 6 month, are they designed to not last or are there ways to maintain them? cant see how to totally run em down if say i do a days work i just recharge it same night cos if i dont its power will run out during my next workin day which is no good. sum1 says u can fill em with that special water i forget name?

 
Just had a look on the purefreedom site no pic of the battery says it 24ah batt 12v don't think it's a leisure battery but not sure possibly sealed fire alarm style battery this is what I run my trolley off keep charged regular these batteries really do remember any bad treatment they get and can not recover from deep discharges like the leisure batteries probably sts about 12.7v dc charged but the discharge voltage is critical to maintain the battery will look up the voltage correctly but I would be getting nervous after 10.5 vdc as to the condition of the battery so crucially it may pay to have two batts and switch half way through the day that's how I've done mine I use crocodile clamps rather than bolt on lugs the pump kills the battery voltage the more you use the pump the more loss of volts

 
If a fire alarm style sealed battery would be roughly 8 x 8 inch 6 inch deep tops and have two metal lugs +&- with bolt and nuts through

 
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