Battery Tending Over Winter

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

I believe you are fine based on the Optima battery specs. If you truly want to be safer, put it on a 24 hour timer and let the maintainer come on for a short time every day.

 

[rico suave]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Great subject. I just replaced batteries in 2 boats I own, two years in a row......really pisses me off. I sort of had an idea of what I should be doing, but all this great advice really helps. Yeah, I was a dumbass.

It also struck me with the recent hurricane Sandy, and our subsequent loss of power for 36 hours (we were lucky) that if I had kept these batteries fully charged I could have repurposed them into some backup power, lights, etc, during the storm just by clipping on a power inverter. Just an idea, and another reason to keep those batteries charged.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Word of advice .. dont charge a frozen battery. It would be best to warm the batteries up before you charge them.

Same thing with them little batteries .. warm them up before you put them in your remotes. They will self recharge after being warmed up a bit.

YD.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Word of advice .. dont charge a frozen battery.

Just don't let your battery get discharged and you don't have to worry about your battery freezing. The temp of freezing for a discharged battery is fairly high 5?F and much much lower(-70?F) for a charged one. If a battery ever gets frozen, the battery's case is likely going to be cracked.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Just don't let your battery get discharged and you don't have to worry about your battery freezing. The temp of freezing for a discharged battery is fairly high 5?F and much much lower(-70?F) for a charged one. If a battery ever gets frozen, the battery's case is likely going to be cracked.

+1
Don't even consider trying to recharge a frozen battery.
If the case didn't crack and leak acid, the integral cell partitions are likely cracked, or the plates are damaged at best.
A frozen battery is already a goner!
You will only regret it until you decide it isn't worth the grief!

 

[Grub54891]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Dunno what the big deal is,I never remove my battery's from anything! Charge em in the fall,disconnect the ground, and walk away.If it is no good in the spring,it was on it's way out to begin with. I've had my battery 5 years and it's still going good! Same with the lawn tractors,and 4 wheeler. I used to pull em and store em in heated basement and charge em once and awhile,they usually gave out much sooner.
Grub

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Dunno what the big deal is,I never remove my battery's from anything! Charge em in the fall,disconnect the ground, and walk away

What you are doing is not necessarily the best thing to do to your battery. Obviouslly, its your battery and you can do what you want to it but the best thing to do is to keep it continually at its full charge if possible.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

I leave my batteries in the boat. I've never charged them during the winter and I've never had a problem. I use my $60. Husky smart charger to desulfate and fully charge the batteries before I cover the boat. Disconnect the negative terminal and I'm done. A battery in good shape that's put away fully charged should be ready to go in the spring. Temps here often go into the 'teens for several days at a time. Might be a diiferent story if I lived in Alaska, tho.

I personally wouldn't trust an unattended trickle charger over a long period ot time, especially not a cheap one.

My .02

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

I leave my batteries in the boat. I've never charged them during the winter and I've never had a problem. I use my $60. Husky smart charger to desulfate and fully charge the batteries before I cover the boat. Disconnect the negative terminal and I'm done. A battery in good shape that's put away fully charged should be ready to go in the spring. Temps here often go into the 'teens for several days at a time. Might be a diiferent story if I lived in Alaska, tho.

I personally wouldn't trust an unattended trickle charger over a long period ot time, especially not a cheap one.

My .02

In your post on another thread you say you have a Guest charger on your boat. I have the same charger on my boat. That is the best type of charger to have on your battery over the winter. You don't use that over the winter?

There's a Guest Charge Pro 2 bank, 10 amps per bank charger on Escapade. I switch it on anytime the boat is docked.

 

[JoLin]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

In your post on another thread you say you have a Guest charger on your boat. I have the same charger on my boat. That is the best type of charger to have on your battery over the winter. You don't use that over the winter?

No, I don't. The Four Winns winters at a marina, on the hard, shrink wrapped and disconnected from shore power. Sometime before they haul it, I bring the Husky down to the dock and go through the desulfate process, which takes 24 hours per battery. At least, that's what I did last year. Sandy interrupted that. I was in a hurry to bring it to its winter marina, so I had to skip that step this year.

My 2 boats before Escapade wintered in my driveway and I did what I described with the Husky, too. Charge them up, disconnect them, leave them in the boat and they're all set for Spring.

My .02

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

I leave my batteries in the boat. I've never charged them during the winter and I've never had a problem. I use my $60. Husky smart charger to desulfate and fully charge the batteries before I cover the boat. Disconnect the negative terminal and I'm done. A battery in good shape that's put away fully charged should be ready to go in the spring. Temps here often go into the 'teens for several days at a time. Might be a diiferent story if I lived in Alaska, tho.

I personally wouldn't trust an unattended trickle charger over a long period ot time, especially not a cheap one.

My .02

Yup .. just as I have been saying. Charge them and disconnect them. Every Winterizing Tech around here does the same thing.

If you think that they are leaving them in the boats just to charge extra for new batteries in the spring.. well .. they just dont have time to do that in the spring. Its not a scam people. Good Techs Know when the battey(s) are going dead when they winterize. They will tell you if you need a new battery in the spring and charge you up front to install them. The hoist guys dont like you taking too long to fire up them boats.

Just another few cents worth..

YD.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Yup .. just as I have been saying. Charge them and disconnect them. Every Winterizing Tech around here does the same thing.

Its because they can't have electrical cords going to every boat. Mainly a liability.

I am not saying that a battery charged once and not charged again until spring is going to completely kill a battery. It will shorten its life and that's still a fact. If you have a 3 stage charger available or a float charger, that is the best scenario.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

]Its because they can't have electrical cords going to every boat. Mainly a liability.[/B]

I am not saying that a battery charged once and not charged again until spring is going to completely kill a battery. It will shorten its life and that's still a fact. If you have a 3 stage charger available or a float charger, that is the best scenario.

Can you linky a fact for me please ..

YD.

 

[NMShooter]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

(sorry about all the edits. I had to fix some of the links)

I think I posted this on this forum before, but I can't find it. So here goes again :


So I got a "good deal" on some Harbor Freight Centech battery chargers... I picked them up for $4.99 ea.

http://www.harborfreight.com/automatic-battery-float-charger-42292.html

However, they may not be so great after all. I noticed that after leaving one on a battery for a long period of time, it was actually floating the battery at 14.20V. (I have three more of these chargers, and they range in output up to 14.6V) The recommended float level for low pressure lead acid float charge is 2.25V to 2.27V per cell. So most of our lead acid batteries should be floated at 13.5V to 13.62V.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_the_lead_acid_battery

So I cracked open the case, drew out the schematic, and started fiddling. I was able to adjust the float voltage to 13.55V. If you want to do the same, here is how.

First, using an exacto knife, trace around the bottom of the enclosure cap while pressing down. Make a couple of loops around the base of the thing. You'll notice a different feel once you get down to the enclosure.

Once you have scribed around a couple of times, take a sharp, small screwdriver. With as much surgical precision as possible, pound that sucker into the crease you just opened up ;D and pry the bottom off.

Pull off the cap, then pull / pry out the circuit board. Bend the heatsink up to reveal the components beneath.

You are looking for a Resistor titled VR1. No doubt for voltage regulator 1, but i'm speculating.

This resistor, along with 4 others, sets a bias voltage which controls the output voltage of the float charger.
Here is the tricky part. Being a high quality Chinese charger, they used some fairly low tolerance parts.

VR1 is a 39 Ohm resistor. It is in series with a 260 (ish) Ohm resistor. I am somewhat color blind and not able to read the colors on the resistor.

If you short out the 39 Ohm resistor, the output value of the charger approaches 15.25V. I yanked the 39Ohm resistor out. Not wanting to replace 5 resistors with 1% metal film, and being impatient, I inserted a 1k pot with a 100Ohm fixed resistor in parallel. I preset the thing at about 60 Ohms, put a voltmeter on the output, and started tweaking. I found that if I replaced VR1 with a 64.9 Ohm (standard value for 1%), I got 13.55V output. That's acceptable.

Also, I noticed that as the charger warms up, the output voltage slowly drifts lower. After 15 minutes of operation, I am at 13.53V

One last thing... If you just swap out VR1, you will have to tweak this value for each charger. Don't expect them to be of similar value from charger to charger.

Much better.


P.S. I can't use the term "good deal" without thinking of my oldest daughter. When she was little, maybe 5 or so, a neighbor lady brought over a bunch of cantelopes that she had bought at a roadside stand for $0.10 each. They were a little over-ripe and tasted a little funky.

We ate them for dessert, and my daughter asked "why did Ms. Kathy bring over so many cantelopes?"..... I was in a conversation with my wife and answered quickly "Becasue she got a good deal on them". I went back to talking with my wife when I noticed that my daughter had a really puzzled look on her face, spoon aloft above the cantelope... I asked her what was wrong and she replied "How do you get a good deal on a bad cantelope?"
[/quote]

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Maintenance and Storage of Lead-Acid Batteries

http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/techstds/docs/handbook/hdbk1084.pdf

An important consideration during storage is a damaging process called sulfation. As cells
sit in storage and self-discharge, the active materials of the electrodes convert to lead sulfate
just as they do in other discharges.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

So I got a "good deal" on some Harbor Freight Centech battery chargers... I picked them up for $4.99 ea.

Also worth noting that the charger also looks like it only uses one diode as a rectifier. The DC float voltage that you measure is actually the average of the peaks and valleys of the ripple voltage. The problem is that the voltage could be too high during the peaks of the float voltage and cause a slight overcharge during those voltage peaks.

I think I would stick with a better float charger like what's built into my Guest charger

 

[Grub54891]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

What you are doing is not necessarily the best thing to do to your battery. Obviouslly, its your battery and you can do what you want to it but the best thing to do is to keep it continually at its full charge if possible.

Well that's what I've been doing for 15 + years, I've seen to many to count that have battery issues every spring, When I explain it to people how I do it their batteries last longer also. Agreed fully charged is the best but if charged fully before freezing temp's hit it it will be fine. As stated before,if its junk in the spring,it was on its way out to begin with.

 

[NMShooter]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

Also worth noting that the charger also looks like it only uses one diode as a rectifier. The DC float voltage that you measure is actually the average of the peaks and valleys of the ripple voltage. The problem is that the voltage could be too high during the peaks of the float voltage and cause a slight overcharge during those voltage peaks.

I think I would stick with a better float charger like what's built into my Guest charger

Nah.. the wall wart does the rectification and a little ripple filtering. And once the signal gets to the battery, the battery provides the rest of the filtering. If you look at the big honking car battery chargers they put out a ton of ripple that goes away when you hook them to the battery. Some folks believe that using the battery to act as a ripple filter actually helps reduce the sulfation. I'm not sure, but I know that they are not hurt by it.

That diode is actually reverse polariety protection in case you hook the leads up to the battery incorrectly.

Also... there is an LED that comes on when the battery is attached correctly. This LED will drain the battery unless the charger is plugged in. Not an expensive charger, but tweak it a little, use it correctly, and it is every bit as good as the Battery Tender brand.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

That diode is actually reverse polariety protection in case you hook the leads up to the battery incorrectly.

That makes more sense actually.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Battery Tending Over Winter

That makes more sense actually.

So we should suggest removing batteries and trickle charge them over the winter ? what about them 6-8 D House batteries ? Do the same ?

What about them 6 volt golf cart batteries ? remove them too ? Move them to a safe location ? ..

What about my Bronco that has been at the side of my house for 3 years .. and still turns like a champ ( after a few stationary warmups here and there ) ..

Proof is in the pudding mate..

Again.. not to say you should not charge your batts. . but in most cases you dont Need to unless the batt. is on its last leg .

YD.