thank you!

since I had the battery back on the charger while reading at 10vs, I
decided to charge i for 2 hours at 2a,

it now reads 12:40 volts

question. since its jsut over 12 volts.. is this good enough or a full
charge?

Most info I have read on the net, including your posts says to charge
it at around 14 volts.


On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:26:16 +0800, "Rheilly Phoull"
wrote:



One day rutman got dressed and committed to text

Hello.


To being with, please accept my apologies for the noobie questions I
am about to make.

Heres the info.


1. Two small electrical motors rated 12volts 230 watts powers a
Peg-Perego electrical jeep. it looks like one of them power wheels
ride on toys. Since the original battery died, I started asking
questions and reading previous usenet posts as to replacing the
expensive power wheels battery for an ordinary car battery.

I received quite a few replies. Some were cons others pros regarding
the car battery adaptation idea. Apparently this has been done
sucessfully before my many people. Some replies were concern as to the
safety etc. Following advice from this group as well as having read
meny hours of googles , I decided to install a new heavy duty deep
cycle GEL battery. It cost me almost triple as much as buying a
regular 12vs car battery. However, from my own personal research as
other people advices as well, it looks like this was the way to go.

I also bought an inline 40a fuse and installed it on the positive
cable.

My kid took out the jeep for a ride, and he was having a blast,
until..... the jeep started slowing down. WAYYY down.. almost to a
crawl. This is odd, i told myself.. it surely did not seem like the
so called deep cycle battery lasted any longer that the orginal small
power wheel jeep battery! we are talking like 40 minutes of play time
with my kid going around for a ride or two.

So I popped the hood. Checked all the cables. The positive and
negative cable were warm but not Hot.. good sign I guess. I touched
the battery just to get a touchy feeling.. cold.. I went under the
vehicle and touched both motors. I was thinking that maybe the motors
were over heating or something as that, which might caused the jeep to
crawl. They were warm , not hot at all.

Took out my volt meter. Checked the battery for power.

It was reading at 11.40 volts!. thats almost a full charge.!

now heres the really odd part.

left the jeep sitting there for about 40 minutes while i went to a
local canadian tire to purchase a battery charger ( I didnt have one,
and since I just bought this deep cycle.. arghh.. more money )
came back. I was unpacking the goodies and noticed that my son had
already jumped back onto the truck and he was doing some wheelies! all
of sudden the power came back for about 5 minutes before dropping to a
crawl again. Check the battery's voltage. It was reading at 11.20
volts. Had my son drive the jeep until it wouldnt move anymore to see
how fast the deep cycle battery drained.. when the jeep coulnt move
anymore and I connected the volt meter, it read at 10.20 volts.


now here are my questions.


If the battery is reading at 11.40 volts ( almost a full charge ) why
are the motors turning sooo slow.

I know that the motors are rated at 12v 230 watts.. so if the battery
drops below 11 volts should this caused the motors to simply quit
turning the wheel?


I didnt check for the battery Ah rating. I took it for granted that a
deep cycle battery meant for a small boat, rideon lawn mover , or even
a small vehicle should be enough to put out enough juice to run two
12v motors rated at 230watts... but maybe i am wrong?

the original batteries the jeep uses are 12v 10Ah....

Could it be that the deep cycle battery may be defective? could this
explain the drop of power being supplied to the motors?


Finally.


whats the best setting to charge the deep cycle battery? My charger
has a setting for 10a and 2a. I am currently using 2a setting. (
trickle charge )

To me the figures dont quite 'gell', since 2 motors at 230watts in theory
would pull 30amps or more dependant on the wire capacity (thickness). If the
original batteries were 10a/h then if the motors were used at full capacity
the they would not have lasted long (the 2 motors would take 30a/h). It
probably would come down to the method of speed control used and very likely
the total available power of the motors was not utilised. Also the symptoms
described would fit the battery not being fully charged, you should be able
to charge it at 10amps, monitor the volts and when when it is around 14v and
very little current flowing it will be fully charged. Of course there is
much more to charging than that but it is a rough and ready way to check.
See http://www.batteryfaq.org/carfaq9.htm#adjust for more info on batteries.
I think I would start with a known full charge and check again.