Having enjoyed the thread about topping up batteries, I thought I'd
start one of my own :-)

We recently bought a second hand battery driven car for our son, and
find that there are two 6v batteries, wired in series, to give 12v. I'm
fairly sure they are motorcycle batteries. They are described as
sealed, so presumably don't require any further attention.

Two questions.

We have to turn the car on to one side, i.e. through ninety degrees, to
get it in and out of the house (yes, every morning, and every evening!),
and always remove the batteries first. Is that necessary? Being
sealed, can they safely be turned on their sides?

Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life, than
the amount of power available the following day.

Thanks!

--
Graeme

"Graeme Eldred" wrote in message
...
Having enjoyed the thread about topping up batteries, I thought I'd
start one of my own :-)

We recently bought a second hand battery driven car for our son, and
find that there are two 6v batteries, wired in series, to give 12v.
I'm
fairly sure they are motorcycle batteries. They are described as
sealed, so presumably don't require any further attention.

Two questions.

We have to turn the car on to one side, i.e. through ninety degrees,
to
get it in and out of the house (yes, every morning, and every
evening!),
and always remove the batteries first. Is that necessary? Being
sealed, can they safely be turned on their sides?

Without knowing the exact make and battery code this is an impossible
question to answer, some batteries are sealed and un vented, some are
sealed but have a vent via a plastic tube, some are nominally sealed
(the lid or stoppers are just designed not to be removed but are still
present and have vent holes), either of the latter two / could / leak
acid when turned onto their side.


Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it
has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life,
than
the amount of power available the following day.


If they are lead acid then trickle charging then won't do any harm,
I'm more worried about the fact that are being (sort of) deep cycled -
normally you should use leisure or traction batteries for such
applications.

In article ,
Graeme Eldred writes:
Having enjoyed the thread about topping up batteries, I thought I'd
start one of my own :-)

We recently bought a second hand battery driven car for our son, and
find that there are two 6v batteries, wired in series, to give 12v. I'm
fairly sure they are motorcycle batteries. They are described as

For this application, they should be deep discharge batteries,
which is not what you'd expect to find in a car or motorcycle
(whose batteries are damaged by deep discharges).

sealed, so presumably don't require any further attention.

Two questions.

We have to turn the car on to one side, i.e. through ninety degrees, to
get it in and out of the house (yes, every morning, and every evening!),
and always remove the batteries first. Is that necessary? Being
sealed, can they safely be turned on their sides?

There's no problem tipping them to any angle for that.
I don't know if there's any issue with long term use at
strange angles, but there's no requirement to keep them
upright all the time that I know of.

Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life, than
the amount of power available the following day.

I've got a number of things with sealed lead acid batteries
in them, and they all basically say the same. The batteries
lose some percentage of their charge when not being used, and
they are killed by being left flat for a long time, so it's a
good idea to charge them once a month during periods of non-use,
and ensure they are fully charged at the beginning of any such
period. Some of the instructions indicate to do a full charge
each month, others indicate just a short top-up charge is fine.

Having said that, I have a 12V 7AH SLA battery which was removed
from an alarm some 10 years ago during routine replacement, and
I do everything wrong with it, and it still operates at full
capacity when I need to use it.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Graeme Eldred wrote in
:


Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life, than
the amount of power available the following day.

What others have said about the batteries is right, but IME you should use
a conditioner, like optimate or accumate(there are others).

You leave these on for ever, and your batteries will be kept fine, and live
for ever. (well, mine have)

They are not chargers as such, and if your batteries discharge deeply you
will need to recharge at .1xcapacity amps, BUT, if they are Gel at
..05xcapacity.

Constant fast charging isn't good.

http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/ may help you (DIY battery FAQs)

mike

In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
Graeme Eldred writes:

We recently bought a second hand battery driven car for our son, and
find that there are two 6v batteries, wired in series, to give 12v. I'm
fairly sure they are motorcycle batteries.

For this application, they should be deep discharge batteries,
which is not what you'd expect to find in a car or motorcycle
(whose batteries are damaged by deep discharges).

OK. I'm assuming they could be m/c batteries, but only because that is
what they look like :-)

Yuasa NP10-6 described as valve regulated, sealed lead-acid type,
rechargeable battery, 6v, 10Ah, Designed for standby use.

I have found it on the web :

URL:http://www.mdsbattery.com/shop/produ...=us&ProductGro
upID=538

Described as 'Sealed lead acid Yuasa battery, often used in UPS systems
and child's electric vehicles. '

We have to turn the car on to one side, i.e. through ninety degrees, to
get it in and out of the house (yes, every morning, and every evening!),
and always remove the batteries first. Is that necessary? Being
sealed, can they safely be turned on their sides?

There's no problem tipping them to any angle for that.
I don't know if there's any issue with long term use at
strange angles, but there's no requirement to keep them
upright all the time that I know of.

Thanks - they would only be on their sides for 30 seconds or so, whilst
the vehicle is manoeuvred through a door way.

Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life, than
the amount of power available the following day.

I've got a number of things with sealed lead acid batteries
in them, and they all basically say the same. The batteries
lose some percentage of their charge when not being used, and
they are killed by being left flat for a long time, so it's a
good idea to charge them once a month during periods of non-use,
and ensure they are fully charged at the beginning of any such
period. Some of the instructions indicate to do a full charge
each month, others indicate just a short top-up charge is fine.

Wonderful. Son seems able to almost flatten the batteries, on a sunny
day, so I have been trickle charging almost every night. Will keep in
mind that a top up will be good news during winter, when the vehicle is
less likely to be used.

Having said that, I have a 12V 7AH SLA battery which was removed
from an alarm some 10 years ago during routine replacement, and
I do everything wrong with it, and it still operates at full
capacity when I need to use it.

Grin These are replacement batteries. We bought the vehicle second
hand, and the seller said the original pair of batteries lasted at least
seven years, and were usually ignored for months at a time, during
winter.
--
Graeme

Grin These are replacement batteries. We bought the vehicle second
hand, and the seller said the original pair of batteries lasted at least
seven years, and were usually ignored for months at a time, during
winter.

They aren't too bad on self discharge, so can go a considerable period
without charging, provided they are put away fully charged. NiCds and NiMH
are much worse for this.

Christian.

In article ,
Graeme Eldred wrote:
We recently bought a second hand battery driven car for our son, and
find that there are two 6v batteries, wired in series, to give 12v. I'm
fairly sure they are motorcycle batteries. They are described as
sealed, so presumably don't require any further attention.

Two questions.

We have to turn the car on to one side, i.e. through ninety degrees, to
get it in and out of the house (yes, every morning, and every evening!),
and always remove the batteries first. Is that necessary? Being
sealed, can they safely be turned on their sides?

It depends. Unfortunately, some makers describe batteries as being sealed
for life when they aren't actually truly sealed types - ie with a gel for
an electrolyte rather than a liquid, where the latter can and will leak if
overturned.

Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it has
had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery life, than
the amount of power available the following day.

Any lead acid regardless of type will be more than happy to be topped up
to full charge regardless of use. But with the correct charger.

With genuinely sealed types this involves using a constant voltage charger
where the maximum voltage doesn't exceed 13.8 volts.

Thanks!

--
*Why is it that to stop Windows 95, you have to click on "Start"?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
mike ring wrote:
Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it
has had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery
life, than the amount of power available the following day.

What others have said about the batteries is right, but IME you should
use a conditioner, like optimate or accumate(there are others).

They are a *very* expensive way of keeping a battery in peak condition. A
decent normal charger at the same price should do the same job - but fast
charge a battery as well.

The expensive items in a charger are things like the transformer - not the
electronics. These low output 'conditioners' should cost no more than any
other wall wart - ie under 10 quid.

--
*I wished the buck stopped here, as I could use a few.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Graeme Eldred wrote:
Grin These are replacement batteries. We bought the vehicle second
hand, and the seller said the original pair of batteries lasted at least
seven years, and were usually ignored for months at a time, during
winter.

Batteries of the type you've described will be perfectly happy being left
- if fully charged - for months without any use.

--
*Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article ,
mike ring wrote:
Should we trickle charge it every night, irrespective of the use it
has had that day? I'm thinking more in terms of overall battery
life, than the amount of power available the following day.

What others have said about the batteries is right, but IME you should
use a conditioner, like optimate or accumate(there are others).

They are a *very* expensive way of keeping a battery in peak condition. A
decent normal charger at the same price should do the same job - but fast
charge a battery as well.

The expensive items in a charger are things like the transformer - not the
electronics. These low output 'conditioners' should cost no more than any
other wall wart - ie under 10 quid.

Some of the Gunsons chargers have an output which can be switched to
'float' so that they can be left permanently connected to a battery.

The ones I have will charge at up to 8 amps as well as float, they
cost about £30 or a bit less I think so very little different from the
ones which don't fast charge as well.

I use the two Gunsons I have on my tractor batteries so they survive
the winter when the tractors are rarely used.

--
Chris Green

In article ,
wrote:
What others have said about the batteries is right, but IME you
should use a conditioner, like optimate or accumate(there are
others).

They are a *very* expensive way of keeping a battery in peak
condition. A decent normal charger at the same price should do the
same job - but fast charge a battery as well.

The expensive items in a charger are things like the transformer - not
the electronics. These low output 'conditioners' should cost no more
than any other wall wart - ie under 10 quid.

Some of the Gunsons chargers have an output which can be switched to
'float' so that they can be left permanently connected to a battery.

The ones I have will charge at up to 8 amps as well as float, they cost
about £30 or a bit less I think so very little different from the ones
which don't fast charge as well.

I was thinking of those 35 quid wall wart battery conditioners which
output a maximum of less than an amp. A 30 quid 8 amp charger which also
does float seems to me ok value. It should allow a reasonable discharged
battery to start a car with an overnight charge.

--
*Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Some of the Gunsons chargers have an output which can be switched to
'float' so that they can be left permanently connected to a battery.

Do you think that it would be possible to use one charger to keep two
batteries charged (e.g. motorcycle and lawnmower) by connecting the
batteries together (in series/parallel)?

Colin

Colin wrote:

Some of the Gunsons chargers have an output which can be switched to
'float' so that they can be left permanently connected to a battery.

Do you think that it would be possible to use one charger to keep two
batteries charged (e.g. motorcycle and lawnmower) by connecting the
batteries together (in series/parallel)?

It should be OK if both batteries are in reasonably good condition. I
think the Gunson's manual actually mentions this somewhere. Go and
have a look around their web site, or, er maybe not, the web site
seems to have changed somewhat and I can't see so much information
there as there used to be.

--
Chris Green