Battery

irishtear

Hi Lads,Happy New Year to you all,,, I need alittle advise concerning a heavy duty leisure battery.I stored it when it was working perfect and had it in a shed and now,6 months later it wont take a charge.I have been told I should not have left it on concrete and its now knackered,is this true.I was thinking my charger was not strong enough and I could leave it in a garage and get them to charge it.Any help ,please...Irishtear.Thanks

claiva

Hi, how long have you left it on charge for ?
I left a charged new battery in the MH for about 8 weeks and took it out over xmas to charge it outside the MH.
It took 26 hours !!!
I was bricking it thinking I'd left it too long.

I thhink 6 months may be pushing it though, if the battery has drained completely it may be too late.

2 stroke

Have you checked the charge level? From what info you provide I'd guess the battery is not taking a charge because it's fully charged, but if it is drained it would be beyond charging at this stage. 26 hours isn't an excessive time to fully charge a battery.

It has nothing to do with being left on concrete, unless that's a euphemism for out of service.
It's more likely permanent plate sulphation from being left in a discharged state, as batteries will self discharge over time.
My batteries are dropping to 60% in one week without a load on in this cold weather.

Best way to resurrect a borderline battery is to link it in parallel to a similar or larger fully charged battery until the voltage on the old one rises above 12.0v then charge it normally.
Most chargers won't start a charge cycle on anything below 8 - 10v.

Don't forget to recharge the good donor battery too when you get a chance.

irishtear

Thank You Sir Liamalot, I have another battery of a similar size and will link them over the weekend and see how we get on.Thanks for the help. Irishtear.:)

irishtear

Thank You Sir Liamalot, I have a battery of a similar size and will link them up over the weekend and see how we get on .Thanks for the help, Irishtear.

Aidan_M_M

The leaving on concrete thing is more about leaving the battery where it's cold, a new battery left on the floor of a cold shed over a frosty winter will lose charge.

2 stroke

Linking 2 batteries without knowing what you are doing is quite dangerous. First you should assess the charge level in both batteries. Too big a difference can lead to high current, possible overheating of link cable, lots of hydrogen gas, fire or explosion. At the very least do this outside where there is lots of ventilation. Leisure batteries are not made like starting batteries and can be damaged internaly by large currents.
Also your good battery should be recharged within 12 hours of dropping below 12 volts or you have started to ruin it too, so don't leave them connected over the whole weekend