What is the difference between series battery connections and parallel battery connections? Does overcharging damage batteries? Does overdischarging damage batteries? How can I evaluate the health and charge state of a battery? This is a unit of measurement for battery capacity, obtained by multiplying a current flow in amperes by the time in hours of discharge. Example: A battery which delivers 5 amperes for 20 hours delivers 5 amperes times 20 hours, or ampere-hours.
Manufacturers use different discharge periods to yield an different Amp-Hr. Rating for the same capacity batteries, therefore, the Amp-Hr. Rating has little significance unless qualified by the number of hours the battery is discharged.
For this reason Amp-Hour Ratings are only a general method of evaluating a battery's capacity for selection purposes. The quality of internal components and technical construction within the battery will generate different desired characteristics without effecting its Amp-Hour Rating.
For instance, there are Amp-Hour batteries that will not support an electrical load overnight and if called upon to do so repetitively, will fail early in their life.
Conversely, there are Amp-Hour batteries that will operate an electrical load for several days before needing recharging and will do so for years.
This rating is only useful in the selection of engine starting batteries. MCA and CA is a higher battery rating measured at warmer temperatures. ANSWER: Reserve capacity is the number of minutes a battery can maintain a useful voltage under a 25 ampere discharge. The higher the minute rating, the greater the battery's ability to run lights, pumps, inverters, and electronics for a longer period before recharging is necessary.
The 25 Amp. Batteries promoted on their high Cold Cranking Ratings are easy and inexpensive to build. The market is flooded with them, however their Reserve Capacity, Cycle Life the number of discharges and charges the battery can deliver and Service life are poor.
Reserve Capacity is difficult and costly to engineer into a battery and requires higher quality cell materials. For instance, Rolls, Surrette and Lifeline use thicker lead grids the plate's skeletal structure to support additional positive plate oxides which are compressed into a denser form in order to add battery reactive material for greater Reserve Capacity and Cycling Performance. In addition, these plates are separated by indestructible separators.
These mats hold the active oxides tightly in place during the cubical plate expansion which occurs during deep discharging, instead of allowing the oxides to shed off and precipitate to the bottom of the battery. Construction materials such as those raise the Reserve Capacity of a battery and increase the battery's Cycle Life. With a 10 second voltage of EN rating and its need to support 30 seconds to 7. The fully charged battery is discharged to 6V with the rated test current.
The voltage must be at least 9. Since the introduction of modern fuel injected vehicles and the need for fast starting, the DIN standard has lost favour amongst automotive vehicle manufacturers.
Nevertheless, it does show a clear relationship with the amount of materials used within the battery, but not startability. After a rest period of up to 24 hours after preparation according to 6. The battery is then discharged according to the standard and is required to meet a voltage of 7. EN1 — The battery is required to meet a voltage of 7. EN2 — The first discharge is the same as EN1, but the second discharge period to 6.
For European applications, we believe this does not give as clear a view to the customer of battery startability and is rarely shown and used within the European aftermarket.
It is advised that this should be checked with respect to any Marine related cranking current enquires. Yuasa currently use the SAE CCA standard as a norm, giving a clear, balanced representation of battery cranking performance between startability and starting endurance.
Please note, due to algorithm issues in existing impedance testers on the market, all testing on Yuasa batteries should follow the old SAE algorithm not EN or IEC as ranges are still specified against obsolete versions of the standard.
This is a good, practical test. Reserve Capacity was originally used to give an indication of the capacity of the battery if the then charging system dynamo failed and the duration of driving time left after charging warning light first appeared.
An Ampere-Hour represents the amount of electricity when a current of 1 Ampere passes for 1 hour. AH is important to know when you are buying a battery for cycling, i. And CCA is the important rating for start batteries that are required to start the engine in your car. Now I know you can use them below 12 volts but for battery health and longevity consider 12 volts as a minimum.
A Rule of thumb for a battery not on charge is: Again, this battery will be used year round. Freezing cold when it sits for days at a time without being used, then it will be used on the weekends when I go fishing. Then during the summer it will be used in the heat. I do have a generator that i plan to use to recharge the battery when necessary, but am wondering if it would make sense to leave a solar charger hooked up to the battery constantly.
Then even when in use, the battery would be charging, right? BatteryStuff Tech For extreme temperatures, the Gel batteries are the best. They also have the slowest discharge rate. Having a solar panel is a great idea, and perfectly safe even if a generator is on or you are using the batteries, if you are also using a solar controller which regulate safe charge voltage levels, and prevents back feed into the panel.
But yes, if a solar panel is receiving sunlight, the battery will also be charging as well. Never saw a gel battery with that type of operating temperatures. I have one in in my truck. Never a minutes worth of problem. BatteryStuff Tech Pure lead vs recycled lead does make a difference in performance. NorthStar batteries sounds like good batteries. Adam Johnson Thank you for your opinion…. I would like to use an electric golf cart for in-town transportation in a small town in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, year around.
I am a teacher and typically only drive it back and forth once or twice a day, about one mile each way. I have a 36 volt charger that came with the cart. The cart is perhaps 20 years old. The batteries it came with were all exhausted, I took them to a recycler. I was thinking of spending the BatteryStuff Tech For the greatest range of operating temperature, the gel batteries would work the best.
For a solar panel, you would either need a single 36 volt panel, or 3 12 volt panels in series. No core needed. Ameya Pawar I want to increase the voltage of 2 batteries from 24V to V.
Is it possible? BatteryStuff Tech There are some step up converters to increase voltages, but we do not sell them. Additionally, I think it may be hard to find one that will step up to volts. Current setup: 1 Two UPS s. Both are independent systems. Each capacity: Watt, Volt AC. Objective: a Design a battery bank in such a way that even if one battery fails, the bank would still be operational and keep the UPS running until the failed battery is replaced.
Proposed setup: 1 Instead of two identical but separate battery banks as configured now, reconfigure the 40 batteries in one battery bank. Attached Diagram: Both the current setup as well as the proposed setup are illustrated. Advantages: 1 When any one battery fails, the entire bank would still be operational. Hence, the UPS s will not fail. Question: 1 Would the battery charging circuits in each UPS somehow interfere with each other?
When electrical power is On, would the battery charging systems in each UPS interfere with each other when charging the single battery bank? In other words, currently just as one UPS charges its own battery bank, would the two UPS s charge the single common battery bank without issues? We would be very thankful to you if you can please give us your valuable feedback on our proposed battery bank set up. BatteryStuff Tech What did you find that more helpful? Lease share it with us. Bo Hi James, thank you for the information and excellent explanations!
The battery is a sealed maintenance free battery. Hopefully you can help me out. Thanks in advance! Both are different types of lead acid batteries, the sealed ones as apposed to the conventional flooded type. Gel batteries are completely sealed.
Bo Thank you very much for your answer. Which type should I select? BatteryStuff Tech Gel is the safest, because it uses the lowest charging voltage of the three. If you are not sure, the gel setting is always a safe option.
Charles Wehland I have an electric 2-wheel scooter that my wife uses. It has 3-batteries linked together. How do I hook-up the cables on my battery charger to charge this bank of 3-batteries? BatteryStuff Tech It depends entirely if the batteries are suppose to be in series or parallel. The answer to this question depends if the scooter runs off 12 volts, or 36 volts.
Bob When using a deep cycle battery in a Solar system, using DC 12 volt lights. Is there a way to automatically shut off the lights before it discharges the battery too far? BatteryStuff Tech Yes, you would need a battery disconnect or a power switch. Priority Start and Battery Guard are two brands that will do this automatically. We sell these in our battery accessories category.
John Fetter This is a philosophical comment. Lead-acid batteries suffer from self discharge. Batteries actually spend overwhelmingly most of the time not on charge but doing absolutely nothing at all. This is what causes sulfation. So what do the experts recommend battery users do? Treat the sulfation. A hundred year old cure! How about treating the battery with something that stops the self discharge? BatteryStuff Tech Keeping a battery on a trickle charger will prevent self discharge.
Beyond that, asking a battery not to self discharge is like asking a person not to age. When testing the charging voltage going to each individual battery in series , it varies from Are the batteries poorly constructed or is it a charger issue? Thanks for any insight you can provide. BatteryStuff Tech How much was the load amount for the test? Jeff Hi, just got a new kirkland battery and it has the 6 cells under the cap. Not all of the cells have liquid in them to the top.
I could not see any fill lines as to where the level should be. BatteryStuff Tech Yes, the cells should be balanced, even as far as liquid levels. Please only use distilled water. They do not need to be filled to the rim, but definitely the plates should never be exposed. If this happens, the plates react with the oxygen in the air and form sulfation rapidly. I hope this answers your question. It should be 56 V or so under the bulk charge mode.
For float, Are the batteries the same age? No need to disconnect it from the others or change your system. Qusay thanks alot for your assistant 1- my battery have the same age 2- i cant increase the charger voltage because its max volt is BatteryStuff Tech A 4 bank 48 volt charger would charge the batteries individually, which may solve the problem.
But since they are not all charged, I recommend the charge rate should be higher for the two to charge up. Otherwise, you can use a single OBD for all four batteries in series. Qusay thanks to helping me to solve the problem and thanks for the site which give this amount of data for users , really great site and great staff. Am i correct in assuming my total stored AH capacity should be sufficient to run the fridge with minimal sunlight for a few weeks.
Cheers Max. Jeremy Fear As long as you rpanels recieve at least 5. If you have any further technical questions, please email them to Tech batterystuff.
But in order for my monitoring project to work, i want to be able to measure each battery alone, even when they are connected in parallel together… I know this sounds impossible, but I still need to think of all possibilities. Anyone with any clues would be very helpful.
Jeremy Fear Any technical questions can be emailed directly to Tech batterystuff. To answer, at least the best I can, I would personally hook up the tester that you are using to an 8 point switch, where each of the 8 modes were connected to one of the batteries directly. You could then switch the connection on the monitor to each battery individually, even though they are all hooked up together.
The only real downside to this would be that if your device is one of the more accurate types, then it will be thrown off by resetting it on each battery and will cease to be as accurate. So while its not completely impossible, its a bit of a catch Hope that helps! Bob Hi, First of all I want to say that your tutorials have been very useful for me and I have learned very much. Do you think this system will work well in terms of longevity? Is there something I should be doing differently, such as setting up the monitor to keep the batteries at a different state of charge more or less discharge?
Second, if I had an always on wireless internet connection, do you know of a way that I could monitor the battery condition from far away via the internet? So that I would know if there was a problem with the generator not coming on. Any ideas you might have would be geatly appreciated.
After some reading obviously not enough I purchased a gel cell battery that was advertized as appropriate for my ATV. It did not take long for the battery to reach a point where it would light lights but not turn over the electric starter.
I can find many references to external chargers, however I have, so far, been unable to find any information on what needs to be done to upgrade the charging system of the ATV for gel.
Any help here? BatteryStuff Tech We do not sell anything that would regulate an alternator to a safe voltage for Gel batteries no more than I imagine it would be costly. I have been working with batteries for years, yet never really understood their differences, much less how to match them with various applications. My typical day of ocean fishing is between 8 and 10 hours. I do not like it on the starting battery and am looking for options.
The first question is AGM or a small gel cell? While I think I am very easy on batteries, evidence shows they do not seem to like me.
So, is it just math, or are there other considerations I should be looking at? Or should I be looking at double that size, like the YT6. Prior to reading your pages, I had heard of AGM s, but the information was skewed. I was told they are just like gel cells, which I now know is only a half-truth.
I can clearly see the differences over wet and gel, but I am most attracted to the low replacement cost if I, indeed, trash it. Gels are more fragile, and they need a charger with a safe voltage profile for charging. Gel batteries can be discharged further without the damage it would cause an AGM. I recommend a sealed lead acid deep cycle battery. Having one at least 8 AH in capacity should give you 10 hour of safe runtime given the mAh draw.
Steve Thank you for your great information. It always helps to read it rather than using guess work! I do have a question for you that I hope you can help with please. I have had our motorhome for nearly 2 years and it came with a couple of solar panels — one of which is rather large.
However we have had a couple of problems with cooked batteries! Basically, we discovered our battery was being cooked by one of our solar panels as the regulator was not working. We got that sorted and replaced the very smelly leisure battery. We realised very quickly and disconnected the battery which was beginning to sulphar up and smell.
We have since added a regulator and although the battery was able to be cleaned up we are finding that it now will take a decent charge but is only holding that charge for about 45 minutes. So we have 2 great solar panels and no holding charge. Do you think that this is due to the damaged battery or could it be something else? It is a sealed battery and so we cannot tell what state it is in internally. BatteryStuff Tech If the issue was sulfation, then the solution would be to try to restore the battery with an on-board pulse de-sulfator.
But if the batteries have been over-charged, and they drain very quickly, then there really is nothing else you can do. Overcharging can dramatically age a battery rapidly. Can you provide some voltage readings? Say, one at rest.
While on the charger. And finally, a reading 45 minutes after off the charger. With these numbers, I can more accurately diagnose the battery. Roger A really helpful, first rate site. My question relates to appropriate charging of an AGM or alternatively, a Gel battery on a vintage, generator equipped car. The generator and standard regulator setup are inadequate to operating the car with headlights AND , say, windshield wipers or heater blower.
The set-point of the regulator has to be raised to 16 volts to avoid battery drain whilst driving, and so after starting, and within about 5 minutes, as the voltage reaches 16, I switch on the headlights to load the generator down to about After several hours drive, or when other loads are added, this voltage will fall below 14 volts. Is this procedure good enough to maximize the life of an AGM or Gel battery? An alternator conversion is being considered. Comparing say a Delco 10Si with a Mitsubishi that might be used for tractor or marine purposes, what should I be careful about?
I am thinking of the different battery applications, tractor, marine, etc, versus the Delco regulator of BatteryStuff Tech 16 volts is too high and will damage a gel battery. If you need to charge a gel battery, a regulator will be needed to keep the voltage from exceeding An alternator would be a good idea. Regularly pumping 16 volts in a battery will cause the internal resistance in the battery to spike and heat up.
This will be like trying to run a gasoline car on diesel. You can either use a 6 volt panel for the car battery, or series the battery with another of identical specs to create 12 volts.
Marissa I just bought a JL 50 scooter and the battery it came with is a Battery which came with the liquid which instructed me to put liquid into the cells and then cap it with the plastic cap plate that came with it and then charge fully before using. I filled it with the liquid two days ago but have not been able to go buy the charger which I Plan on buying at wall art tomorrow.
Last night and one time today the battery cell cap has popped open on only one cell the last one loud enough for me to here it it is in the same room with me. I am worried something is wrong, should I be concerned? Is this normal?
Is it because I squeezed the bottles when adding the liquid? Squeezing the battery would not be a problem. It usually takes hours for the acid to become fully absorbed. The only cause I can think of for the caps popping off is overheating. Is the battery in the garage? Did you install the vent tube that comes off the side? If the liquid levels decrease, please add distilled water. But other than that, everything else should be fine.
Venting is normal, but caps popping off is not. A relay disconnect de paralel when the motor is off. BatteryStuff Tech For a situation like yours, I recommend using a battery isolator switch, which can be used on up to amp alternators to conveniently allow for adding a spare battery in your car, boat, or RV. The unit is a fully automatic switch that allows the engine alternator to charge 2 batteries, while keeping them electrically isolated from each other. This will prevent current flow from one battery to another, thus allowing each battery to be an independent power source.
Why is it working? I just bought a 12v 7. I ran a motor from it for 2 minutes and it held up. I charged it and it took a charge. Should I run a cordless drill motor from it for as long as I can to see how long it last? Or should I leave well enough a lone? Thanks Trevor. BatteryStuff Tech I mean isolation as in commercial heavy duty battery isolators.
Is this much more necessary if the bank is not typically receiving a daily charge top up i. BatteryStuff Tech If the batteries in the bank are charging and discharging together, and they are of the same type, size, and age, then there is no need to disconnect them.
They act together as a single batery unit. This is can harm a small battery if connected to a large battery, which is not recommended. Different age and type of the batteries can also cause inbalance. BatteryStuff Tech volts is extremely discharged. The batteries are probably beyond repair due to sulfation. I recommend replacing them. As far as which batteries to use, I suggest deep cycle batteries, not car batteries.
They can be flooded…but for mobility scooters its best to use sealed batteries like AGM or Gel. Steve Tannenbaum I have a question about battery charging from a solar panel. The solar charge controller uses a mosfet to act as a switch. If the voltage on the battery increases to a certain level, then the mosfet opens and disconnects the solar panel. What happens if my solar panel puts out 24 volts instead of volts? Will the higher voltage but lower current of the panel cause any charging problems?
BatteryStuff Tech 12 volt solar panels can reach as high as volts if the sunlight is direct. The controller should have specs regarding the maximum voltage input it can handle. Even though the controller is, like you said, a switch, it also lowers the charge voltage, too.
Most of our controllers lower the voltage to a safe Therefore, 24 volts incoming from the panel is no problem for the battery. Josh in a 24 volt system, batteries connected in series, if one battery happens to fail, should both batteries be changed regardless of whether or not the 2nd battery tests out fine? With the 12 volt boost, it looks like one battery is being discharged more than another.
This is a problem. The second battery, even though connected in series with the first, is untouched by the boost because the connections are only attached to the first battery. But having a 24 volt system, both batteries act as one single unit. Uneven charge levels will cause early battery failure and poor performance. I would use the boost option as sparingly as possible. When fully charged,is best to keep it on charge,or remove it from the power supply?.
BatteryStuff Tech The best thing you can do for batteries is keep them in a fully charged state whenever possible.
Graham Bennett My question is,do you keep a 12volt battery used for a golf trolley constantly on charge,or remove from charge when fully charged?. BatteryStuff Tech It really depends on the charger you use. Tim I live in a 3rd world country.
Distilled water is not available here. Can I safely use the water out of my Katydyn Filter to add back water to my starter battery? The water going in is either rain water or river water; it is not treated chemically. If it is not acceptable for the battery, what are my options for adding water to the battery? Sam Distilled water is just captured steam.
You can pretty easily make your own with household supplies or even camping supplies. There are several methods out there. BatteryStuff Tech Distilled water is best because there are no impurities. Using other water will technically work, but the battery will not perform or last we long as it would otherwise.
Having foreign contaminants and minerals will throw off the delicate chemistry of the electrolyte, and throw of the pH levels, too. Filtered water will work better than rain water. But anything more than pure H20 will negatively affect the battery.
Fred Harris Great article, Learned much, but, and there is always a but, started looking at batteries and found the amp hour rating listed in different ways — examples: 20 amp hour rate 35 Amp Hour 32 Min 10 Amp So I am again confused about the true meaning of the amp hour. I think this is what I need to look for as I am looking for batteries for a trolling motor. BatteryStuff Tech Amp ratings are tricky.
They really depend on two things: Draw amount, Amps and time. The first rating, 55 AH at 20 hours means that during a 20 hour load time, it takes 55 amps to discharge the battery completely. I do not know what time frame the second rating is for, possible taken at 10 hours?. The third rating tells you if you draw a steady amount of 10 amps, the battery should last you 32 minutes. The first rating, 55 AH, is equivalent of 2. But if you bump it up to a rate of 10 amps per hour, your duration is drastically cut to 32 minutes.
Check out our battery load run time calculator to figure out what length of time a battery would give you under a load of your choice. You should find that very informational. Art I have two deep cycle dp24 12 volt batteries.
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