batteries

[Coaldust]

Funny battery story;

I was working on a Bobcat T300 (basket case) in Dutch Harbor of all places, last August. I needed a group 31 battery.

Visited the local NAPA and the nice NAPA Lady had exactly one, very dusty, BAT BAT 7236 on the bottom shelf with a 3/18 date code sticker on it. I paid something like $275 for it w/$30 core. Now, with my new prize, it spent a day on the charger to bring it back to life.

 

[Goat29]

"End of Life warning" now that is good!!! Never heard it put that way before, but, I have enjoyed that several times!!! NAPA--another of the "great ones"!!! I was running 2 12V batteries, went to JD, only had 1...Went to NAPA, they had 2---wet, been in stock 3 years!!!! YOU do know, that if 2 batteries are not MADE at almost the same time, they don't work good together??? Another one of those things I have learned over the many years of the battery WARS that I have endured!!!!!
DEKA---I have never heard of them before------THANKS to all of you for telling me------I gonna look at them---thank you!!!
Thank you, and the very best to you and yours!!!

 

[heymccall]

I mix and match different aged batteries all the time, BUT, using my $70 tester, I ensure that they're close in value before doing so.
And, my $70 tester is used on every new battery I buy, and, in 25 years of buying batteries, I've only ever had one Deka deficient off the shelf, and it was a 3yr old Carquest.

 

[mitch504]

load tester, or inductive or whatever the new stuff is?

 

[heymccall]

Mine is a rebranded ESI 720 that I got from the MAC tool guy 15 years ago.
The 2 gripes are the slow scrolling to get to 1000cca, as it starts at 500.
And, I have to connect to the lead sub base on steel studded batteries. It won't read right on the 3/8 steel stud, if it reads at all.

 

[mitch504]

I learned something interesting when I looked a different brand of one of those. The instructions had a big red warning that if you used it within 30 minutes of charging the battery, it would give a false bad reading. They said to always let them rest before testing, after driving or using a charger.

I started messing with my local NAPA's tester, and it definitely did this. Somebody drives up and they test it immediately, a fair battery would test bad, and good old one tests fair.

They said it helped their battery sales when they got it.

 

[John C.]

I might have a little bit of input on older batteries and sudden failures. Back in my apprentice days, just a few years ago, I had to go to school at night twice a week. The instructor in the electrical class had cut a 4D down the length of the case so we could see the internal construction and laid each half on its side so you could look down on all the exposed cells . You could see all the pretty pink plates and there was lots of debris in the spaces under the plates. Most of those spaces were nearly full and on one you could see where the flakey looking stuff was actually touching both sets of plates on each side of the cell. He explained the battery had three failures. The obvious one was the full space which he explained was lead that had flaked and fallen of the plates into the space below. So much had fallen that it shorted out the cell and killed it. He also told us that when lead falls off the cells it kill the capacity of the battery as well. Not as much lead for the reactions, so not as much current to turn a slow starting engine. The biggest reason for the lead falling off was vibration. He then explained why battery hold down fixtures were so important. No hold downs and batteries get banged around in the compartments and then the fail prematurely. Finally he pointed out the pink color of the plates. He noted the correct color should be white and that these plates were pink because the battery had been dead for a long time. The pink was lead sulfate and the sulfate acted like an insulator preventing the cell from passing the amps for charge and discharge. Letting machines sit all winter with no charging application to keep the levels high meant plenty of time for the sulfate reaction to take place. I've also observed over the years since that class that water levels that decrease over time and expose the plates to the air seem to speed up the sulfating process.
The take away for me on that class was to make sure the batteries were secured so they couldn't vibrate and/or get banged around from being loose. Keep the water levels high and find a way to keep the batteries charged through long periods of shut down. I've used solar powered chargers several times on machines that were sitting in used equipment yards at dealers. I use the float chargers on my motor cycle and ride lawn mower. Those batteries used to be lucky to last two seasons. Now with the float chargers on them I'm getting at least four years.
I've been hearing some good things about the new lithium technologies and expect a whole new set of maintenance instructions to come up over time on those. I'm not sure at this moment though that the initial price makes them cost effective yet. Time will tell.

 

[Nige]

As long as were talking battery and life. Has anyone else noticed that batteries just don't seem to give any end of life warning any more? Seems to me in my younger days that a battery would slowly start to get weaker and weaker until finally just not having enough power to do the job. Now days Iv had many batteries be just fine one moment and the very next start have nothing, full dead never to return. Just wondering if anyone else see's this same scenario?

Same here a couple of weeks ago. Parked the car one evening, electrical system was fine. Following morning there was only about enough power in the battery to work the central door locking and light up the dash. Starter motor - forget it. And that was in consistent 70-80 degree ambient temperatures, all the engine has to do normally is turn over maybe one revolution and it fires.

 

[clutzer]

As long as were talking battery and life. Has anyone else noticed that batteries just don't seem to give any end of life warning any more? Seems to me in my younger days that a battery would slowly start to get weaker and weaker until finally just not having enough power to do the job. Now days Iv had many batteries be just fine one moment and the very next start have nothing, full dead never to return. Just wondering if anyone else see's this same scenario?

I just had this happen on my hummer that has two AGM duralast batteries in it. But, that thing had sat for a number of weeks without its normal tender.

 

[Bumpsteer]

Yup, had the instant dead battery syndrome, it sucks.

Park truck at bank, cash paycheck, dead battery....call for help, spend paycheck.

Ed