I know modern battery technology is supposedly different to what it was 30 years ago but does anyone know if it is still okay to store a dry charged car battery? I have a spare and want to charge it, drain the electrolyte and seal it. I remember getting single glass cells in like that for a telephone exchange years ago.
Yes, but don't put the contents back into the cells (or mix between cells, but that's old advice anyway).
About 15 years ago, cell lifetimes improved massively when they started to use permeable cell separator bags - a porous membrane which avoided many of the failure modes based around a build-up of conductive sludge around the bottom of the plates. If you mix crud from both inside and outside the bag (still from within the same cell), then you're losing most of the benefit.
The electrolyte? As long as it's all the same SG it should be ok I would have thought. I was just going to bottle it, flush the cells and seal the battery with tape to keep the air out.
I used to wash the crud out of cells as part of routine maintainance. Extended the life significantly.
I have two car batteries. One is completely sealed from external probing. At least I can't se a way of getting into it. The other is one that still has fillers where you can get a hydrometer in. That's the one I want to try and store.
The alternative is putting it on trickle charge and hoping it doesn't die before I want to use it
Alang wrote: [...]
Myself, given a choice, it's the modern 'maintenance free' one I'd be keen to store. Charge it, store and forget. Typical English climate and it'll sit there for a year and retain maybe 90% charge. In stark contrast to those hi-falluting, hi-tek, hi-price Ni/Li types which lose about 5% a day. Gimme a drill fitted with an SLA any day :)
Only if it's pure, clean acid. If it's the usual collection of dissolved crud, then it's not a good idea.
I have a pair of 6V batteries for a '30s MG, although I think they're '50s vintage. Three glass cells in a wooden crate. They were drained and stored in the '50s, then when refilled 40 years on they worked fine. I plan to use them again, when I get round to it.
Trickle will kill them too - you want float, and ideally temperature compensated. Or else charge intermittently, but regularly.
You can buy a float charger from Optimate, although everyone I've heard from who has one has also had it kill batteries in a pretty short time.
Surely that would store it wet. You need to let it dry out. Since sulphuric is hygroscopic it'll need a single rinse with deioninsed to be able to dry properly. Only a single rinse, repeat rinsing is known to kill plates.
FWIW you can extend life further by adding phosphoric acid. It also much improves capacity - the downside is it only works over a narrow concentration range, so you need to be up on battery maintenance to derive the full benefit.
You'd get limited life that way, dry storage is indefinite.
NT
NI loses charge fast.
LI-ion is amazingly good.
Probably takes years to go flat.
I have a couple of Gunsons chargers, around the same price as Optimate but rather bigger maximum output (around 8 amps). They have a switch to put them into 'permanent float' mode and I use them this way to keep my lawn tractor and my compact tractor batteries healthy through the winter.
They've both managed two years so far and the batteries are still happy, the mini-tractor even started OK in the very worst of the recent cold snap after not having been used for several months.
So Gunsons chargers with 'permanent float' - recommended.
That's the idea here
I'd discharge them every now and again. I used truck batteries on alarm systems back in the 60s. They could last 10 years on trickle charging with the occasional discharge test. But I'd prefer dry storage and forget until needed
Indeed
Never done it so it hasn't come up.
I'd use it as a last resort but when a battery is dead I'd get a new one
That's what I understood but I wasn't sure with modern battery design
Oops Ni/cad/'MH' etc Yes. Lithium good. If not then there'd be mobs of villagers with burning torches coming up my path :) Have a test battery in the fridge (6V Lithium DL223A ), still good after 9 years. DL223A
Possibly a misunderstanding there. Phosphoric is not a reviver, its something you put in when its new, or reconned. The difference it makes is quite dramatic IMLE with it.
NT
Since I bought a "battery conditioner" for each (Airflow, rather than Optimate) I haven't had to buy a new battery for either my lawnmower or my intermittent use car....
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley saying something like:
One hour per day on a timer. Keeps mine charged up for years when in standby.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.