Re: (ET) batteries

["David Roden" <etpost drmm net>]

On 23 Apr 2014 at 9:59, Ferguson Apiaries wrote:

> I left my tractor plugged in to a charge controller all winter to keep 
> up the charge and now I have very little capacity in the batteries.  I 
> can get about 5 mins. running time. Is there anything I can do to revive 
> them?

I'm assuming that you've already watered the batteries.  How much did it 
take?

There are a coiuple of different things that could have happened.  You may 
have caused enough water loss that the grids were exposed and damaged from 
long air exposure.  In such cases sometimes just adding water will get you 
back in business at reduced capacity, which may or may not be sufficient.

Simple overcharging even without massive water loss will still cause 
positive grid corrosion.  This is a slower process but still 
deterioration.  
Positive grid corrosion is what degrades UPS batteries even when they're 
never actually used to power the connected equipment.  Even float charging 
does this.

In all cases the cure is to replace the batteries, unfortunately.

Neither overcharging nor undercharging is good for batteries, but my 
experience (yours may be different) has been that overcharging kills them 
more often and faster.  

I recommend against the use of battery maintainers in all cases.  It's 
better to run the charger for a while every month or two, better still to 
actually cycle the battery (use and then charge), when it's in storage.


David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA

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