In article , Windmill spam-no-
lid scribeth thus
tony sayer writes:

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
Power cut this afternoon about 1700, text from DNO saying High
Voltage fault off until 2030. Drag out generator, battery utterly
flat. Pull started the (diesel) generator and power came back about
1900. Even after that couple of hours the battery didn't have enough
umph to engage with the starter ring. It sits at about 11.5 V, one
end cell looks a bit low one electrolyte and the case at that end is
slighly bulging. Battery is kept on genset in the unheated garage so
may well have got frozen. Perhaps not last winter but in 9/10 or
10/11 it got below -10 C without much trouble.

Time to change it. A good battery should be able to turn the engine over
after a couple of hours of charge.

How do car batteries get on in cold countries being outside all the
time;-?.

In Winnipeg car parks for employees, customers, etc. were often fitted
with sockets on poles into which you could plug your car's block heater
so that the engine remained well above freezing. Which also made it
easier to start.
Of course that was before all the disasters the West has suffered.
Don't know about nowadays.



Well even Dave's remote hilltop isn't quite as cold as Sweden and I
don't think Volvo owners have had to do that. And yes before anyone gets
wound up by that anything chemical does depend on temperature for its
speed of reaction....

But IIRC this battery which is on its last legs isn't quite out in the
open more in an outhouse and a bit of lagging around that with
polystyrene foam would keep the worse of the weather out and a simple
home brew float charger would keep it topped up..


We've dome quite a few of these over time a simple power transformer,
bridge rect one smoothing cap one reg current and voltage limited and
adjustable, been is use some 15 odd years.


http://www.linear.com/product/LT1083
--
Tony Sayer