Sudden battery failure, non Landy

[Alan Drover]

I asked for battery details I posting number 2..
My C Tek cordless battery charger is a smart charger with a difference..

[DogDave]

As far as I can tell the gel / agm batteries seems to just die almost instantly whereas traditional Led
Acid seem to get more gradual worse. At least that's been my experience. Agm on motorbikes will go from perfect to flat 20 mins after turning off with no warning.

There might be a scientific reason for that or it might be just coincidence on what I have owned and had problems with

[ZebraDriver]

I have twice had batteries that disconnected themselves internally. First one was on a Fiat Tempra about 25 years ago. The battery would show all the appearances of being completely flat (not even an ignition light) then half an hour later it would start the car. Driving along (if it started) all of the electrics would suddenly become faster and brighter as the battery went through a disconnect cycle and the voltage would rise. Fault was cured with a new battery.

Similar thing happened with the missus Ford fiesta about 10 years ago, this time we plugged in one of those voltage displays into the fag lighter. Caught the battery doing the same thing, again a new battery cured the fault.

[Alan Drover]

The Red Top was reading 13.71 volts when I disconnected the charger last night. This morning it was 11.74! I'll leave it on charge longer but I reckon it's had it. Tayna Batteries sell them but I have to get one with the terminals in the middle and Odyssey don't do that configuration so it's another Red Top by the look of it.
I can't remember when I bought it but it's quite some time ago and being in a discharged state for a long time hasn't helped.

[richardhula]

Just wanted to check the collective experience on batteries..... my ride on was playing up last week losing power and I was checking over the engine to try and source the problem which required starting it quite a few times over a few days of investigation. Eventually sorted the problem and fired  up to check running OK and gave it a quick ride round the yard to confirm back to full power.Tried to start next day and nothing, figured battery just low so connected up the Noco booster, again refused to start. Swapped battery for one off my other mower and started OK.

Put flat battery on charge overnight, charger showing a red error light, tried again with charger on 'regeneration' again didn't complete charging cycle and measuring voltage gave a fluctuating 7 to 8 volts. So battery obviously gone to the meet it's maker, but just curious as to whether batteries go from seemingly healthy to being the proverbial feet's up dead Parrot?

Alchad

There are a number of reasons for failure but the stress you put it under plus age have maybe culminated in plate shedding to the point were one of the six cells is shorting completely leaving you with a ten volt battery. That would explain the low volts and why your charger rejected it. I suspect severe sulphation of plates, part of the ageing process is a contributory factor as well. Don't fret they are consumables.

[2286]

Re Smart chargers being not so smart.

There has been mention that they fail or struggle with batteries that have gone a little too low whilst a regular old school charger can resurrect.

Is there an upper limit they can cope with.

I have a large 12v 100ah on the s3 which the smart charger seems incapable of brimming to the point of illuminating the the full icon.

It is the type with an on off switch, 6 and 12v, trickle and rapid mode.

Smaller batteries seem to come up to full and trip out as it were.

Meter on the 100ah which is relatively new shows everything is fine with it and the vehicle charge system.

 

[Alan Drover]

Battery minders can't cope when the battery voltage gets low.

[Herald1360]

Re Smart chargers being not so smart.

There has been mention that they fail or struggle with batteries that have gone a little too low whilst a regular old school charger can resurrect.

Is there an upper limit they can cope with.

I have a large 12v 100ah on the s3 which the smart charger seems incapable of brimming to the point of illuminating the the full icon.

It is the type with an on off switch, 6 and 12v, trickle and rapid mode.

Smaller batteries seem to come up to full and trip out as it were.

Meter on the 100ah which is relatively new shows everything is fine with it and the vehicle charge system.

 

Most smart chargers rely on the residual charging current when the battery reaches about 14.5V falling below a certain level to trigger the "fully charged" indication and drop the charging voltage back to around 13.8V for long term float maintenance charging. A large capacity 100AH or more battery may never see the charging current dropping low enough for this to occur. Leaving the battery floating at more than around 13.8V is not good for it long term.

[BigLee]

I was told once that a battery that goes from nearly full to dead is due to the plates inside buckling and touching each other, effectively shorting out the battery. I always thought that made sense. I had a battery that would take a charge to about 12.5 volts and then drop to about 3 volts and repeat the cycle. Obviously other things can go wrong but if suspect I just replace.

[Alchad]

I asked for battery details I posting number 2..
My C Tek cordless battery charger is a smart charger with a difference..

Alan - apologies, missed your question first time. Old battery photo belowYou cannot view this attachment.

Don't know how old it was, came with the ride on when I bought it which was at least a few years ago. Interesting never seen battery terminals like that before.

Re the terminals- and a slight rant - bought a new Lucas battery from Tanya, that has the L shaped terminals to which you bolt the battery cables. The previous identical Lucas Barry I bought a couple of months ago for my spare ride on had the same terminals and I just fastened the battery cables using 8mm nuts and bolts. This time some design genius at Lucas appears to have decided to modify the design such that instead of being round the holes in the lead pillars are square! Only reason I can think of is that you can then use 'coach' type bolts with square section below the bolt head. Of course they don't provide the bolts with the battery, and ordinary 8mm bolts are just slightly too tight without needing persuasion to get through the square holes. Hrumph!

[Alan Drover]

Looking at the photo of the battery it looks to be the wrong type for a ride on. You'd need an SLI battery not a deep cycle one or, like my Odyssey, a combination of both.

[2286]

Thanks for that information, that ties in with what I have found, that the smart charger seems to cope with smaller capacity batteries.

But regular charger should be used for the larger capacity battery.

I never leave a battery on charge unmonitored or for long periods. 

The smart charger had not tipped over to full light after 3 hours so I unplugged.