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Re: (ET) Battery dilemma



I'm surprised you are getting so little life out of these batteries. My last set of cheap 6v batteries (Exide brand) from Sam's Club lasted from 2003-2018, using the onboard GE charger. They were quite feeble near the end but could still get my light mowing tasks done. Of course your use pattern is probably completely different from mine, but maybe the float charger is doing something counterproductive?

On 6/2/2019 11:02 PM, David Tiefenbrunn wrote:
I've been running a large frame Elec Trak for years now.

I used to be able to get used golf cart batteries for about 1/3 the cost of new ones, and they would work well enough for a few years, so pretty good deal.    I used a simple analog float charger to keep them at full charge, and used the stock built in charger for the main charging.  A few years back, I got a fancy 36V modern charger, but found that it was horribly power hungry in idle / float mode, and the float set point was too high, boiling water away too fast, and NO adjustment!

 The last set of batteries I bought new Duracells from Sam's or BJ's. They are showing low capacity already, only been a year or so.   I've been using 3 smart energy efficient 12V chargers to keep them at proper float voltage.   Even if I got the expected 5 years under ideal conditions for flooded cell lead acid batteries, that's about 6x90= $540 every 5 years.  Yikes!  And right now, that's not even close to what I got..  [I have to go gather data to determine if I have one dead battery / cell / or the whole set is low output]

Contemplating looking at other battery types, or an inverter generator with a big power supply [which I have the parts to build laying around] to power the Elec Trak.

Dave


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Graham Allan
Minnesota Supercomputing Institute - gta umn edu