Bongo Fury

I've spent a few minutes looking at the Elecsol web site and some of their newsletters & brochures, there is one interesting grapth in the current brochure that might give us a pause for thought, on Paqe 7 the grapth of voltage against charge of the Elecsol 110 battery never exceeds 12.5 Volts now one would assume (risky of course, its a marketing brochure) that that would be at a sensible temperature like around 20°C, given that the current temperatures around the country are more like 5°C then terminal voltage at rest for the batteries is going to be more like 12.5 +(15x-.022)=12.17 Volts so it could well be that there isn't a problem, its just that their batteries / construction / ingredients give a slightly lower than average resting voltage.

This has always been one of the bug bears of commenting on batteries, they work based on chemical reactions, which are sensitive to temperature, and of course actual ingredients, they alter there chemical contents over time due to additions of water / acid and what ever is passing by at the time! The terminal voltage of batteries varies a lot, which is one of the reasons that trying to estimate remaining charge by the voltage is fraught, the only reliable way to ascertain the charge in a battery is to measure the Specific Gravity (SG) of each cell, that will vary much more linearly with charge (it still depends on ingredients and temperature) but it still isn't the whole story as one of the main killers of lead acid batteries is sulphation which will limit the rate you can get the charge out of the battery and hence the terminal voltage under-load (hence the use of the drop test).

So Andrew I'm less sure that you do have a problem, I think the Elecsol batteries do give a lower than normally expected resting voltage, which coupled with low temperature at the moment is the cause of the concern.

Useful further info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-acid_ ... mon_usages - see "Voltages for common usages", also "Deep cycle batteries". I agree with Geoff. At low temps recently, there's probably not a problem.

Thanks for the replies and info guys - really appreciated as usual. This all does make a lot of sense, especially with the current low temperature outside.
Couple of things still bugging me though.
After charging the battery in the house for 36 hours the charger still didn't move to maintainance mode, which suggests it didn't reach a fully charged state. Possible reasons for this could be the charger's not working or it is not suitable for charging carbon fibre batteries. Or, as is suggested on the newsletter it only does ever reach 12.5v and the charger needed it to go further and it wouldn't. It does say on the instructions/warranty card that came with the battery though

Guidance to open circuit voltage:
12.80v Fully charged
12.40v 50% discharged
10.70v Fully discharged.

Also my voltage reading on my hard wired meter in the cab reads a lot lower voltage than the multimeter
eg multimeter - 12.44v & in the cab 12.18v. Does it lose voltage through the extra wiring or something?
Think I'll leave it fully wired in for now and ring the supplier in the morning for advice - will report back. I'm also getting fed up taking the battery in and out, testing it continuously and getting all confused, when perhaps it's perfectly normal. Also my wife is going to start throwing things at me if I mention battery's once more! But it does seem like all could be well. If that's the case and the battery is OK, I apologise now for wasting peoples time.

Andrew

This all got me rather worried, as I never charged mine when I got it (there were no instructions with it) and I don't possess a voltmeter so have no idea what it is doing. However, we've had it since April or May last year and it's been doing its job well (as far as I know - it hasn't gone flat on us, anyway).

Maybe ignorance is bliss in some (isolated) cases

Alison01326 wrote: I don't possess a voltmeter so have no idea what it is doing.

Maybe ignorance is bliss in some (isolated) cases

Me neither...... fit and forgot..... although I do have a built in charger now.... I only expect it to be okay until next spring when the guarantee runs out..... yep I know....cynic

mikexgough wrote:

Alison01326 wrote: I don't possess a voltmeter so have no idea what it is doing.

Maybe ignorance is bliss in some (isolated) cases

Me neither...... fit and forgot.....

Ditto, until Mike wanted a cross check on Elecsol terminal voltages.

hembramacho wrote:eg multimeter - 12.44v & in the cab 12.18v. Does it lose voltage through the extra wiring or something?

Only if your drawing significant current thru the wires to the battery from the voltmeter, if you have run two wires (one to the +ve and one to the -ve of the battery) specifically for the voltmeter from the meter to the battery directly and you are terminating at the same point that you put the meter probes on then you would expect to get the same voltage - however meters do have to be calibrated for accuracy (they have an internal reference voltage against which the voltage to be measured is compared).

g8dhe wrote:

hembramacho wrote:eg multimeter - 12.44v & in the cab 12.18v. Does it lose voltage through the extra wiring or something?

Only if your drawing significant current thru the wires to the battery from the voltmeter, if you have run two wires (one to the +ve and one to the -ve of the battery) specifically for the voltmeter from the meter to the battery directly and you are terminating at the same point that you put the meter probes on then you would expect to get the same voltage - however meters do have to be calibrated for accuracy (they have an internal reference voltage against which the voltage to be measured is compared).

Yes, it has 2 wires (one from the +ve and one from the -ve of the battery) and goes directly from the battery to the meter. I can't think that the LCD screen takes much power and affects the reading? Does this mean it's not accurate then?

Andrew

Well, the only other check you can make is use your multi-meter to connect as closely as possible to the panel meter in the cab - if it has sharp pointed probes then pierce the insulation with them a few inches from the panel meter - and compare at that point, I would tend to dis-trust the panel meter more than I would the multi-meter, but that isn't a guarantee as to which is wrong!

g8dhe wrote:Well, the only other check you can make is use your multi-meter to connect as closely as possible to the panel meter in the cab - if it has sharp pointed probes then pierce the insulation with them a few inches from the panel meter - and compare at that point, I would tend to dis-trust the panel meter more than I would the multi-meter, but that isn't a guarantee as to which is wrong!

Thanks Geoff - will have a go at that tomorrow.

Cheers

Andrew

As previously said - a hydrometer is the only way to properly test battery cells - Lidl were doing them for the dizzy heights of 99p recently I checked it against a 15 quid durite profesional hydrometer - it's spot on

Spoke to the supplier today who passed me on to their 'technical' department. They said that the battery should have been able to be fully charged within several hours, so could not offer an explanation why it hadn't. They also weren't sure whether an Elecsol battery needed to be at 12.80v to be in a fully charged state or whether it could be lower (12.50v) as I suggested.
Their advice was to discharge the battery and then fully charge it to see if that helped. Have now switched the fridge on!
The voltage reading had dropped 0.20v overnight, so when I asked if this could possible have something to do with the cold weather, he told me that it shouldn't affect it so much as it would drop that much, so I probably had something else draining it!
Will keep on monitoring the situation, but came across a website with some interesting info:

http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm

Especially interesting is the bit on 'Temperature Effects on Batteries' and the bit at the bottom in Mini Factoids:
"Nearly all batteries will not reach full capacity until cycled 10-30 times. A brand new battery will have a capacity of about 5-10% less than the rated capacity."
Maybe I was a bit premature in my worries after all.

Andrew

The battery voltage (12v Lead Acid) will vary by 0.022V/°C so a 10°C change in temperature overnight will cause a 0.22V change - achieved that here last night no problem !

I just bought an Elecsol battery on Sunday. The first time I logged on to the forum, I saw this posting!

Could you not prove or disprove the cold weather theory by bringing the battery indoors to charge and/or measure the voltages?

Bin Bongoed wrote:I just bought an Elecsol battery on Sunday. The first time I logged on to the forum, I saw this posting!

Could you not prove or disprove the cold weather theory by bringing the battery indoors to charge and/or measure the voltages?

A minor problem with this forum (any forum) is that we tend to hear more from people either with problems, or thinking they might have problems. If of a nervous disposition, de-register

On the other hand, as long as we get to hear the outcomes, it's all good instructive stuff, isn't it, so hang in there