I remember a conversation with a Syncronaught on the subject of : "Long Life Car Batteries".
Since Ken Arkus, my auto electrician, retired,
I've been on the short cycle roundabout for car batteries,
like, guaranteed for two years, expect three and you'll be lucky if you get four.
I bought my air cooled T3 (now Porsche) in 1982.
It's battery, made in Rumania under Nicolae Ceausescu, lasted till 1992.
So, does anyone know a brand with six or more years longevity ?
I too remember getting good life out of batteries in the past.
Can't help on a good brand, but as an option I have taken to getting good used batteries from the wreckers. It can be a little hit and miss, but for the price I have not bee disappointed.
Also use a trickle charger ( or solar charger) if you don't use it regular
Richard
Genuine VW batteries last around 7 years, but the price fluctuates and sometimes it may or may not be cost effective. Other than genuine VW, I have had a long life (6/7 years from Federal and Varta. The silver calcium are better than calcium.
Here are some details that I researched a while back
Batteries last longer the more time you keep them 100% charged. Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged really means and no your alternator can not do this. Second vote for online batteries.
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 10:11 Subject: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Re: Long Life Batteries.
Genuine VW batteries last around 7 years, but the price fluctuates and sometimes it may or may not be cost effective. Other than genuine VW, I have had a long life (6/7 years from Federal and Varta. The silver calcium are better than calcium.
Here are some details that I researched a while back
Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged really means and no your alternator can not do this
I would really like someone to explain this to me. Is there a difference between 14v from an alternator and 14v from a battery charger? There are a lot of myths on the internet and batteries seems to have many of them.
To get a batteries open circuit voltage up to 12.6 you need to charge it at a higher rate. That higher rate differs between battery types. This higher rate should only be applied periodically and also assists with sulphation. Hence the use of "smart chargers". An alternator is not smart enough to do all this. It cannot asses the batteries condition and charge accordingly. Most importantly it only works when the engine is running. So short trips and key off current draws will deplete the battery with no recharge until the engine is started. It is this off charge time that will kill a battery. If you have a camper or other non daily driver keep it on a tender preferably a smart charger. Greg
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 12:52 Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Re: Long Life Batteries.
Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged really means and no your alternator can not do this
I would really like someone to explain this to me. Is there a difference between 14v from an alternator and 14v from a battery charger? There are a lot of myths on the internet and batteries seems to have many of them.
Car alternators were
never designed to fully charge a car battery. Their function is to give
enough power to crank the engine and to top up the battery while driving but
never to 100%.
This is fine for the
average drive-to-work use but falls far short of what is needed to give high
charge %age and reasonable battery life.
I bought a Projecta smart charger soon after they came
onto the market. They cost a fortune but the number of batteries (mine
and other people’s) that I have brought back from near death and some
even stone cold dead) has paid for it many times over.
That Projecta was early
technology and later technology is as far ahead again.
CTEK has one that
applied a charging regime according to ambient temperature; the reason for this
is the extremely wide variation needed to charge at 00 and 400.
You will find tables that illustrate this range.
CTEK also have a
brilliant on-board DC/DC charger that eliminates the alternator problem
completely, plus works off solar and other magic things.
Yes, they cost a lot
but if you save just one big house battery, it will have paid for itself.
If you are travelling, getting your house battery up to 100% can make a huge
difference in having enough power for everything.
By the same token, if
you have a low use vehicle, you can keep the cranking battery up to 100% with
ease. As Greg said, they last considerably longer if kept at full charge.
Les
From:
Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com] Sent: 13 October 2014 13:20 To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia]
Re: Long Life Batteries.
To
get a batteries open circuit voltage up to 12.6 you need to charge it at a
higher rate. That higher rate differs between battery types. This higher rate
should only be applied periodically and also assists with sulphation. Hence the
use of "smart chargers". An alternator is not smart enough to do all
this. It cannot asses the batteries condition and charge accordingly.
Most importantly it only works when the engine is running. So short trips
and key off current draws will deplete the battery with no recharge until the
engine is started. It is this off charge time that will kill a battery. If you
have a camper or other non daily driver keep it on a tender preferably a smart
charger. Greg
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]"
<Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To:
Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014,
12:52 Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia]
Re: Long Life Batteries.
Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged
really means and no your alternator can not do this
I would really like someone to explain this to me. Is there a difference
between 14v from an alternator and 14v from a battery charger? There are a lot
of myths on the internet and batteries seems to have many of them.
I would disagree Phill. An alternator can produce a high enough voltage to fully charge a battery however the regulators are set a voltage below this. The reason is that if the alternator pumped out say 14.8v on the freeway for four hours it would fry the battery. A smart charger would however deliver the 14.8v periodically over many hours. Old belief was if you gave a battery 13.8v it would be fully charged. Now researchers are talking about much more complex charging regimes catered to the constitution on the battery.
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 14:33 Subject: RE: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Re: Long Life Batteries.
Greg, I think that you are reading too much in to this.
13.8v will charge a battery fully. As long as the charging voltage is higher than the battery voltage, it will continue charging.
Where people misunderstand it is that you must have the alternator running to charge the battery for a similar time (and current) as you charge the battery from a battery charger. When you charge a battery from a mains powered charger, you normally leave it on for 10, 12, 24, 48 hours etc. So if you drive for the equivalent time you will charge the battery 100%.
The problem arises because you do not usually drive long enough to charge the battery to 100%.
A two stage charger starts off at a high voltage to charge the battery as fast as it can to it's current design limit and when it reaches a preset high percentage of charge, it reduces to a lower voltage float level so that it will not overcharge and damage the battery.
(Part of my apprentiship had me design and build a 6/12v lead acid battery charger from scratch. Including making a transformer from a piece of sheet metal and a roll of conductor)
I fitted a CTEK charger to replace the Trakka supplied unit after the house battery died earlier than I expected. The house battery is now almost alway 100% charged from the alternator albeit after some decent runs. I know this as the mains charger reports the battery as being fully charged after a few minutes of turning it on.
The beauty of the CTEK charger is that it has a MPPT solar regulator built in which once finished charging the house battery, switches to charging the starter battery.
Car alternators were
never designed to fully charge a car battery. Their function is to give
enough power to crank the engine and to top up the battery while driving but
never to 100%.
This is fine for the
average drive-to-work use but falls far short of what is needed to give high
charge %age and reasonable battery life.
I bought a Projecta smart charger soon after they came
onto the market. They cost a fortune but the number of batteries (mine
and other people’s) that I have brought back from near death and some
even stone cold dead) has paid for it many times over.
That Projecta was early
technology and later technology is as far ahead again.
CTEK has one that
applied a charging regime according to ambient temperature; the reason for this
is the extremely wide variation needed to charge at 00 and 400.
You will find tables that illustrate this range.
CTEK also have a
brilliant on-board DC/DC charger that eliminates the alternator problem
completely, plus works off solar and other magic things.
Yes, they cost a lot
but if you save just one big house battery, it will have paid for itself.
If you are travelling, getting your house battery up to 100% can make a huge
difference in having enough power for everything.
By the same token, if
you have a low use vehicle, you can keep the cranking battery up to 100% with
ease. As Greg said, they last considerably longer if kept at full charge.
To
get a batteries open circuit voltage up to 12.6 you need to charge it at a
higher rate. That higher rate differs between battery types. This higher rate
should only be applied periodically and also assists with sulphation. Hence the
use of "smart chargers". An alternator is not smart enough to do all
this. It cannot asses the batteries condition and charge accordingly.
Most importantly it only works when the engine is running. So short trips
and key off current draws will deplete the battery with no recharge until the
engine is started. It is this off charge time that will kill a battery. If you
have a camper or other non daily driver keep it on a tender preferably a smart
charger. Greg
Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged
really means and no your alternator can not do this
I would really like someone to explain this to me. Is there a difference
between 14v from an alternator and 14v from a battery charger? There are a lot
of myths on the internet and batteries seems to have many of them.
That's what I will be buying when I fit solar, kills two birds with one stone. For those unfamiliar with this it is a dc-dc charger as Les mentioned. So the question is Phill not what I think, it is why is a company like ctek producing this if there is not credit to the theory?
From: "Jon Bartlett mail@jaybe.net [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 16:25 Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Long Life Batteries. [1 Attachment]
I fitted a CTEK charger to replace the Trakka supplied unit after the house battery died earlier than I expected. The house battery is now almost alway 100% charged from the alternator albeit after some decent runs. I know this as the mains charger reports the battery as being fully charged after a few minutes of turning it on.
The beauty of the CTEK charger is that it has a MPPT solar regulator built in which once finished charging the house battery, switches to charging the starter battery.
Car alternators were
never designed to fully charge a car battery. Their function is to give
enough power to crank the engine and to top up the battery while driving but
never to 100%.
This is fine for the
average drive-to-work use but falls far short of what is needed to give high
charge %age and reasonable battery life.
I bought a Projecta smart charger soon after they came
onto the market. They cost a fortune but the number of batteries (mine
and other people’s) that I have brought back from near death and some
even stone cold dead) has paid for it many times over.
That Projecta was early
technology and later technology is as far ahead again.
CTEK has one that
applied a charging regime according to ambient temperature; the reason for this
is the extremely wide variation needed to charge at 00 and 400.
You will find tables that illustrate this range.
CTEK also have a
brilliant on-board DC/DC charger that eliminates the alternator problem
completely, plus works off solar and other magic things.
Yes, they cost a lot
but if you save just one big house battery, it will have paid for itself.
If you are travelling, getting your house battery up to 100% can make a huge
difference in having enough power for everything.
By the same token, if
you have a low use vehicle, you can keep the cranking battery up to 100% with
ease. As Greg said, they last considerably longer if kept at full charge.
To
get a batteries open circuit voltage up to 12.6 you need to charge it at a
higher rate. That higher rate differs between battery types. This higher rate
should only be applied periodically and also assists with sulphation. Hence the
use of "smart chargers". An alternator is not smart enough to do all
this. It cannot asses the batteries condition and charge accordingly.
Most importantly it only works when the engine is running. So short trips
and key off current draws will deplete the battery with no recharge until the
engine is started. It is this off charge time that will kill a battery. If you
have a camper or other non daily driver keep it on a tender preferably a smart
charger. Greg
Do some reading on the internet about what 100% charged
really means and no your alternator can not do this
I would really like someone to explain this to me. Is there a difference
between 14v from an alternator and 14v from a battery charger? There are a lot
of myths on the internet and batteries seems to have many of them.
Greg and Les. I don't think that you have read my statement correctly. An alternator can charge a battery to 100%. The opposite is just one of those internet myths.
I also have a CTEK charger, to replace the Phill Lander charge-o-matic from 1971, as the cars do not usually get driven enough to charge the batteries by the alternator.
Ok Phill, an alternator in a T3 cannot charge the battery to 100%. An alternator coupled with an advanced battery management device can charge a battery to 100%. High end modern cars have such systems from factory. But we are talking T3 syncro here and I said "no your alternator can not do this" meaning your t3 can not. If you want me to go into a rave about 7series bmw battery management I will but most on here will be dry reaching before I am done. My whole point about all this is that if you understand what is best for a battery you can then take steps to treat it kindly. I even put my daily drivers on a smart charger every now and then. It is impossible to always do the right thing by a battery, especially house batteries that we drain and charge incessantly.
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 17:46 Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Long Life Batteries.
Greg and Les. I don't think that you have read my statement correctly. An alternator can charge a battery to 100%. The opposite is just one of those internet myths.
I also have a CTEK charger, to replace the Phill Lander charge-o-matic from 1971, as the cars do not usually get driven enough to charge the batteries by the alternator.
A constant voltage will always charge a battery 100% as long as it is higher than the fully charged battery. You haven't yet explained why not.
It's Ohm's law.
I have worked with hundreds of lead acid batteries that are charged with a constant voltage. Battery chargers a few years ago were all constant voltage.
Not advertising Phill, experience. When I worked for BMW we had a massive problem with battery discharge and complete failure on the high end - high consumption cars. It started with the e36 convertible, the problem there was the stiff chassis shaking the battery to bits. First solution they came up with was a insulated battery tray then they released an "advanced glass mat" battery. Then they released the E65 7 series which in the early days you could not sit in with the radio on for more than 15mins without the battery getting below cranking voltage due to the crazy amount of systems running when the vehicle was "awake". Over the years they modified the software and hardware to stuff as much charge in and reduce current flow out to keep the batteries above cranking current. My point with all of this is that they were not trying to sell us techs a battery charger while on training courses, they were teaching us the workings of the cars we dealt with. If BMW are doing this to cars on mass to avoid fitting an expensive second battery there must be some legitimacy to it. I am not an electrical engineer, but I find it hard to believe that this many, varied companies are all lying to us to flog smart chargers. " A constant voltage will always charge a battery 100% as long as it is higher than the fully charged battery. You haven't yet explained why not."
Your T3 alternator regulator will be putting out about 13.something volts, your battery could have a potential closed current of say 14.7 volts. Voltages around 14.4 - 14.7 are needed in "doses" to achieve full charge depending on the battery type. Complex electronics (and preferably a temp sensor) are needed to balance at this point on the edge of destructive overcharging. So not only is the peak voltage under but the way in which the voltage is delivered is not ideal. Simply it should follow a low then high then low pattern.
From: "plander@optusnet.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com> To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, 13 October 2014, 20:46 Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Long Life Batteries.
Greg, you have been blinded by advertising.
A constant voltage will always charge a battery 100% as long as it is higher than the fully charged battery. You haven't yet explained why not.
It's Ohm's law.
I have worked with hundreds of lead acid batteries that are charged with a constant voltage. Battery chargers a few years ago were all constant voltage.
Many solar panel regulators will charge on a cycle like shown in the earlier post. I have a few for various uses, quite cheap depending on the current they handle. In the graph, the regulator can control the voltage applied, but the current absorbed is determined by the load (battery), current will naturally decay as the battery gets closer to full charge regardless of weather you pulse or not.
You also need to factor in some real world scenarios, if your charging off solar out camping, you often will not get full sun all day, either due to clouds, trees, etc, so the charging cycle can affect getting maximum charge into your battery when you can ( eg the cycle restarts every time a cloud passes)
Like mentioned earlier, solar and charging off the alternator won't always have the time and consistent output required to keep a battery fully charged
To get the best out of any battery, the main killers will be heat, vibration, discharging too far, and not fully charging.
As a few have mentioned, and I have also gotten many years (7-8) out of batteries years ago, the alternators (and generators) of the time without pulsing were doing an adequate job, so poor life out of batteries now is more likely to be due to poor quality batters, or excessive load discharging them more between charges.
Phil,
Thanks for introducing me to On-line Batteries and the Varta E38 Silver Battery.
I've ordered one and I'm very satisfied with the price.
I also want to thank every one who has so far taken part in this discussion,
and was particularly interested in Greg's BMW observations.
I have an E31 in my garage, the two door GT version of the 7 series.
It has two very expensive batteries and electrical complications to rival a small jet.
It can flatten it's batteries in four weeks while just sitting still.
Not a fault, it is just that it's electronics do not shut down.
So, a C-Teck is attached every two weeks when it has not been driven.
Driving was so uncomplicated when I got my licence driving a 1939 Singer Bantam 9 tourer.
Genuine VW batteries last around 7 years, but the price fluctuates and sometimes it may or may not be cost effective. Other than genuine VW, I have had a long life (6/7 years from Federal and Varta. The silver calcium are better than calcium.
Here are some details that I researched a while back
When I first joined
Qantas, all aircraft were fitted with plain old lead acid batteries – that’s
all there was then.
There was a dedicated
battery bay in which the batteries were charged and the primary measuring tool
was the hydrometer. Each battery had a chalkboard beside it and on this was
written date, time and the SG reading. Each battery was constantly monitored
and pulled out of service if they failed to reach the specified SG reading.
Confirmatory readings
were taken with very accurate voltmeters and they were periodically load
tested. The load testing was more to ensure that there was no sharp drop off
in current.
All this was more than
sixty years ago and I cannot recall actual values but it was the SG that was
the determining factor and the aim was for (from memory) 95% charge. Anything under
90 (again from memory) was taken out of service.
In those days, DCA
(Dept of Civil Aviation) inspectors were constantly roaming the workshops and
the battery bays got a lot of close attention.
I have been hunting for
an authoritative description of the charging process for lead acid but no luck
so far. Most descriptions that I have found so far talk about volts per cell
and don’t even mention SG.
My knowledge of battery
technology is not high but I do know a chap who is a total guru in batteries
and 12V solar systems. He has in the past come up with a lot of figures on the
differences between state of charge achieved by alternators (old and new
technology), chargers (old and new technology), the significant advantages of ambient
temperature adjusted charge rates, and a whole lot more. Given his massive
experience in this field, I tend to accept his findings.
Les
From:
Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com] Sent: 14 October 2014 07:41 To:
Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Syncro_T3_Australia]
Long Life Batteries.
Do the reputable companies actually say that you can never charge a
battery to 100% with an alternator?
Well what happens when your battery is at 12.7v and your alternator is at 13.8?
What stops it from charging?
Your BMW experience has nothing to do with what I am saying.
