My god, maintain 24 lead acid batteries
Lead acid battery stores energy using a reversible chemical reaction between lead plates and dilute sulphuric acid (electrolyte). I wonder how to maintain the lead acid battery. Of course, I search many articles to write how to do, but I want to take an experiment. The following is my experience for maintaining 24 lead acid batteries.
I maintain 24 lead acid batteries. Some are in automobiles and vans that are used on a regular basis and some are in vehicles and machines used seasonally. 22 of them are in what I call the “seasonal” vehicles. The only thing I do for the 2 “regular use” vehicle batteries is to periodically check the terminal voltages after the vehicles have been at rest for 24 hours to verify that the charging system is working and that the battery is fully charged
In about December, up here in central Wisconsin, I check each “Seasonal” battery’s voltage with a digital vom and recharge the worst four first, recording the event (date, time and voltage) on my log. If this “trieage” voltage is less than about 12.2, I consider replacing that battery next spring.
Don’t worry about sitting lead-acid batteries on a concrete floor. I’d like to see any significant data (not a single anecdote or an old mechanics tale) to show that’s a problem. Lower temp is better to slow chemical reactions. Actually, the concrete floor would probably keep the battery warmer than if it were in ambient air in an unheated space.
There’s no point in disconnecting the batteries from my old vehicles, but I would do that if I had any vehicles that were new enough to be drawing a trickle of current all the time.
I recharge about 4 batteries at a time with 4 of the above mentioned chargers. The batteries stay on the charger for about 3 days to one week. Then I remove the chargers, record the charger-removal event and move on to the next 4. With good batteries, they almost all have a terminal voltage between 13.04 and 13.07 as soon as I remove the charger.
Much lower than that suggests a looming problem, but one day later I check the voltage of the last 4 batteries I charged and record that. That’s the voltage they will stabilize at for some period of time. One can see from this value what the battery is capable of doing and about how long it will be before it will need replacement.
I repeat this whole thing again in about late March.
With proper care, lead acid batteries will have a long service life and work very well in almost any power system. Unfortunately, with poor treatment, their life will be very short. I believe that most users want to maximize the lead acid battery life but not to ruin them. So take good care of your batteries and then they will take care of you.
Source: www.leoch.com
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