Battery Care

[Turfwrench]

Battery care - for prolonged life.

All terminals need to be kept clean!!! This includes the case of the battery.

Simple methods of cleaning including a solution of baking soda and water liberally sprayed over the terminals and case. This first and foremost will neutralize the acid on the battery itself. You will note foaming on the surfaces with the acid or corrosion as the soda does its job. Rinse with plenty of fresh water.

Take a wire brush of file to the terminal post to refresh the lead ends for proper contact. Also do this to you connections to the battery.

Reconnect you leads to the battery and spray with an electrical spray or a gel type coating. This helps not only keep good connection between battery and wiring but also helps prevent the cakes from building up on the terminals.

Charging a battery: do no use heavy amp charges to bring them back up, rather a slower charge of 10 amp or less. Either use an automatic charger or frequently check the state of charge on the battery. High amp charging or unattended charging with no auto shut off can cause the battery to boil over. This results in acid on the surface of the battery which in turn promotes loss of life, (excess corrosion on the battery surface thus drawing down the life of the battery). After charging the battery check the fluid level in the battery, at this time fill battery with distilled water only!!!!!!! Do not overfill, fill only till water level is within the splits in the fill area. Overfilling results in the same as boiling over, fluids on the battery case. You do not need recharge upon adding the distilled water.

There are a couple of ways to check a battery for its usefulness. The first and the most easiest is the load test. Most of us have seen these devices, clamp the two leads to the battery, it displays the current voltage of the battery. Then flick the switch and hold for 10 seconds as it puts a drain on the battery. The needle will indicate if battery is good, weak or bad. The next test is specific gravity where you check each cell in the battery with a hydrometer. Now here is the nuts and bolts of finding out if the battery is good or bad. Each cell should be within .05 You may have 5 of the 6 cells in the battery satisfactory and one cell that is bad. In this case, sorry, replace the battery. If all cells are consistently low than your battery has neared the end of its useful life.

Now for those sealed batteries that you cannot check each individual cell: the green, red or yellow only indicates the condition of one cell in the battery, therefore not reliable as far as the rest of the cells of a battery go. Hence the load test is the best way to determine the life of these types of batteries.

Winter storage: Unhook the battery and store in a cool dry place. Concrete has no effect on modern batteries contrary to the olden day when it may have had an effect. Make sure to fully charge battery before storage. An undercharged battery or near dead battery will freeze and render it unusable. An active battery will not freeze, an undercharged or nearly dead battery will be severely affected. A maintenance charge once or twice during the storage is beneficial as a battery will normally self discharge over time. Refer to above charging guidelines.

I deal with batteries everyday in my job. Yes there are better brands than others but all batteries will last longer with proper, simple care. These are things that I try to impress upon people with the electric golf carts that only get a couple years out of their batteries and cry at paying almost 1000 to replace them and the cables. Keep them clean, keep them fully charged.

Hope this helps ya all.

[GLF]

Nice post Bill.