Anyone using lead crystal battery?

[scottar]

yeah, apply the voltage until it screams " enough!" No, but seriously, on the subject of applying higher than normal charging voltage to a flat battery, it will actually work if the battery is still serviceable. Twice now, for various reasons, I've had dead flat completely discharged batteries that would not respond to any chargers, smart or old-style. My local auto electrician has an old variable power supply that he uses for this. He'll connect up, crank the output up to, IIRC, 30 volts, then watch for current flow. It usually doesn't take long, as the current starts to rise he'll slowly reduce the voltage until it is back to 14 volts and showing current flow. It can then be placed on any style of charger to complete the job. Obviously cannot resurrect failure like a dead cell, but, for inadvertant complete discharge, it's great.

Not sure if you have seen old mate on you tube who gives his old batteries a tickle up with the arc welder . NOT something I would do. I've seen the results of batteries exploding. It's not pretty.

[EdBerg]

I rang my battery supplier who sold me that AGM and on mine it was 5 year pro rata, as the battery is almost 5 years old, well, in other words, not worth the effort of driving down to Caloundra.

What size batteries do you guys use with 150-200HP motors?

[gazza2006au]

I rang my battery supplier who sold me that AGM and on mine it was 5 year pro rata, as the battery is almost 5 years old, well, in other words, not worth the effort of driving down to Caloundra.

What size batteries do you guys use with 150-200HP motors?

I always thought u base a battery on your continous load rather than horse power range is this bad practice?

In my theory starting a engine is pretty much instantly so it would draw quiet a few amps 50-80amps to start but thats only for a split second

A continous load of 5amps would need all the consideration in amp hour size

For me i would just grab a single 100amp hour for basic electronic set up

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[EdBerg]

The Optimax outboard are apparently finicky about batteries because the they have a couple of ECU's and double injectors which chew up a lot of power on start up. According to the blurb I read on my motor, mine requires a battery with 800CCA or 1000MMA or 180AH, the last one I think is a typo and could be 180RC otherwise it would be a bloody big battery. The battery I put on lay-by today does 780CCA so very close, it does 1000MCA so meets that requirement and if the last one is actually a typo then it also meets that requirement, as the blurb say "OR" in between each requirement and not "and".. So technically I think that it should be fine.

Gazza: I think regarding the HP battery requirements, the bigger the motor, then probably the bigger the starter motor and the bigger drain on the battery so bigger battery required.

Might ring up a few more Mercury dealers tomorrow and see what they say, as I have had conflicting opinions from the ones I spoke to today, One said it's fine and the other said no.

I might start up a new thread regarding outboard sizes and the batteries the members actually use as I don't want to hijack Crunchy's' thread.

Ed.

[ranmar850]

Yes, your manufacturer will normally specify a minimum size. With ECU's, you don't want serious voltage droop whilst starting, obviously. Don't guess it, read up. for your particular motor.

[ranmar850]

It would be a pretty small 2-stroke motor to only draw 50-80 amps, gazza. Have you ever put a DC tong tester on the battery leads of a motor being started? ? I haven't done it on outboards, but I have on cars, and a 2.5 l petrol car engine will be similar to your 150-250 hp 4 stroke, as a broad generalisation. For example, my 150 Merc is a 3 l. 4 cylinder, big for a 150, but you get the idea. I just went out and did a cold test on my Subaru Forester turbo, 2.5l four. It peaked at 274 amps. I also checked my D-max, for the hell of it, peaked at 550 amps, but that's a 3l diesel.
You must base a Start battery on the amps required for starting, ( CCA /MCA rating)the continous load has little to do with it, and use a start-rated battery, made for high current/ short duration discharges followed by a rapid recharge. But for a House battery, or anything supplying a load when not being charged, then the amp/hour capacity comes into it, and you should be using a deep-cycle battery.

[gazza2006au]

It would be a pretty small 2-stroke motor to only draw 50-80 amps, gazza. Have you ever put a DC tong tester on the battery leads of a motor being started? ? I haven't done it on outboards, but I have on cars, and a 2.5 l petrol car engine will be similar to your 150-250 hp 4 stroke, as a broad generalisation. For example, my 150 Merc is a 3 l. 4 cylinder, big for a 150, but you get the idea. I just went out and did a cold test on my Subaru Forester turbo, 2.5l four. It peaked at 274 amps. I also checked my D-max, for the hell of it, peaked at 550 amps, but that's a 3l diesel.
You must base a Start battery on the amps required for starting, ( CCA /MCA rating)the continous load has little to do with it, and use a start-rated battery, made for high current/ short duration discharges followed by a rapid recharge. But for a House battery, or anything supplying a load when not being charged, then the amp/hour capacity comes into it, and you should be using a deep-cycle battery.

Wow thanks for the test Ran i had no idea a starter pulled 550amps that us huge!

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[ranmar850]

They can pull a lot more than that.My 4.2 Patrol had a dodgy starter motor for a while. Always seemd to be straining the battery. We diagnosed it by putting that same tong tester on it--peak of 720 amps, warm start. larger diesels can easily draw over 1,000 amps. This is why connections and the actual condition of the leads is so important for starting. Any resistance will cause voltage drop. This is why you can put a multimeter at you starter terminals, and see apparently good voltage, sufficient to start. The battery itself can be fine also, plenty of cranking capacity. As a multimeter is a very high impedance, and you are just putting it between +ve and -ve, it actually draws very little current to get that voltage reading. But when you turn the key and engage the starter ,the heavy current draw means that all that impedance of the bad connection/dodgy lead with the Green Death inside means you drop a lot of volts across the lead, so, not much voltage voltage at the actual starter motor.

[ranmar850]

I've had a battery explode in close proximity, luckily I was facing away. Showered with acid and bits of casing. That was from a spark igniting hydrogen given off by a battery on charge. The other way they explode is a sudden outgassing, and the venting not being able to cope. This is a real problem with the sealed type, many instances of these exploding on HME , just on normal start load.
The auto sparky in question ramps the voltage up slowly, waiting for current flow. Uses enough to get flow, but when they are really flat he does get to 30v, IIRC, before it will happen. Simply hitting it instantaneously with the 32v or whatever from a welder could be said to be asking for trouble, or a spectacular video.

[Dignity]

Only seen it once when a truckie was at the dual battery setup on his truck and not sure what he was doing but the following explosion gave me a lot of respect about being around batteries. Fortunately in this incident there was a fire hose only metres away and I nearly drowned him in the process. Fortunately he didn't suffer any acid burns but the area the batteries were housed looked pretty blown apart.

[EdBerg]

Took my 135A AGM battery to Autobarn and got them to charge it up on their chargers which would be much better than my 15 year old 8A smart charger from K'Mart, anyway they left it on overnight and it now has a much higher reading than it has had in the past. I will watch it over the next few days to see what voltage it stays at, with a lot of luck it may have been a simple case of not being fully charged as the two chargers I have only go up to about 13.7V. After charging with those the AGM voltage used to drop down and sit on about 12.6V. Currently it is sitting on 12.9V. So hoping there is life still left in the old battery.

I have modified the transformer of the 20A charger I made and now it has 15.2V unloaded output. If I am satisfied with it, I will use the old one as the second battery and use the new one as the main starter. Tomorrow I will be getting some heavy battery cable and will wire it up to the 2 battery switch, so the boat now will have a dual battery setup. Only now it will have an additional 25Kg weight on board and need to find some place to put it and fix it in place. Most likely put a set of Anderson plugs on it as well in case I want to run a freezer off it.

[gazza2006au]

I have a 19 year old Arlec 8amp heavy duty charger when my battery is flat it'll read 11v or something like that and when i connect the charger it only slowly increases the voltage untill its charged

Maybe autobarn has a charger where they can doal in 14.5v and the battery kicks off at that voltage from the beginning hence the better charge?

Would be good if ordinary home 12v chargers displayed the amount of power going back into a battery like mah or ah instead of dicky leds saying its charged

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[Crunchy]

I thought the retailer was responsible for warranties, you should be able to drop the battery on his counter and say call me when it's sorted.
Pro rata could be the nigger in the woodpile though.

FWIW I'm buying my next battery from Bunnings they are very good to deal with when it comes to returns.

Yes went back to retailer after no joy with supplier and they just offering me a small discount on another battery.... i.e. return your $550 battery and we'll give you $130 bucks off an xyz one (With no start capability so its out of the question)....better off keeping the crystal one and trying to rejuvinate it...

[EdBerg]

My experiement with lead crystal battery hasn't ended too well....it no longer wants to hold or accept a charge......it has three weeks left of warantee but the retailer said the supplier has changed hands and the new supplier is not probably not going to honour the warrantee "But good luck" (I have yet to call the supplier). They still sell this battery (Supplier) but with a 1 year rather than 3 years warrantee and now only covers manufacturing defects.....apparently according to the retailer lots of returns! (Retailer no longer sells them).

Don't buy a lead-crystal battery - expensive and from my experience they don't last!

Hey Crunchy, I am not 100% sure but I was under the impression that if you bought the battery from a retailer then they have to do the warranty and not the supplier as your business transaction was with them and they can't just fob you off and say that it is the suppliers responsibility. I would give the "Office Of Fair Trading" a call and explain the situation with them and see what they say. It doesn't cost anything except your time when they put your call on hold. You don't have anything to loose, if it is as I think it is then they may want to get involved as it may be a breach of your consumer rights. When you bought it did they say it was pro rata warranty or straight out replacement with the warranty period, if it was pro rata then just count your losses and move on, if not give them heaps.

Cheers

Ed

I

[gazza2006au]

My local auto battery/auto supply shop stocks a large range of batteries including DC his arangement is if u have a new battery that dies he'll take it back put it on the shelf for return and give u a new battery on the spot, my sister has used this too and got the replacement instantly

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