Good Housekeeping will help you maintain Good Battery Life

How to help maintain Good Battery Life

One of the up and coming trends these days is that people are starting to build battery banks for the storage of power from their solar panels and wind turbines. But in my opinion it does not just start there, a good system of maintenance is essential to keep your batteries in good condition.

We have noticed that one of the recent trends is for people to buy Cheap Leisure Batteries for this purpose and one of the reasons is because the internet has driven down the prices of these batteries and they being used more and more for battery storage and also for the battery banks that are used on canal boats and other river craft.

A few years ago the main batteries used these boats were in reality Truck Batteries. The change came when companies like Johnson Controls started to make similar size batteries that came with thicker plates, for increased storage capacity. These batteries were really Starter Batteries, but will now double up as storage batteries. The most popular one is  110 amp Leisure Battery, that is marketed by Numax and a couple of other battery companies.

These batteries sort of double up as a starter and storage battery, but must not be mistaken for a genuine storage battery, which is an AGM (Absorbed Glass Matting) that is a deep cycle battery. These batteries now cost about twice the price as a Leisure Battery, but are solely made for the storage of electricity. These are in fact the correct batteries for the job of the energy storing of solar power, but they are more expensive and do not need as much looking after as the 12 volt lead acid batteries that are now more commonly used. One important thing to remember is that you must not dis-charge your leisure below 80%, because this will damage your batteries. AGM batteries can be totally discharged and will make a full recovery, this is one of the reasons that they cost more money, they have much more plate capacity and storage than a lead-acid battery.

A couple of battery facts

The leisure battery is a flooded lead-acid battery and does require some looking after to keep them in tip-top condition. The main ones now come in a sealed casing with a blow off valve that will go off if the battery gets overheated for some reason, letting the built up pressure escape. Some leisure batteries especially the smaller 75 amp Leisure Batteries do have screw tops similar to some car batteries; these must be looked after as follows.

Adding Water to the battery

If you have a screw top battery or batteries, it is important to check the fluid levels (electrolyte) on a regular basis. This is because the battery gives off some gasses while in operation (oxygen and hydrogen), this depletes the amount of liquid in the battery and will need topping up with distilled water. You can buy this at your local auto store, or use the water that is produced from a certain type of electric dryer. The electrolyte Car batteries, but most car batteries are now sealed similar to the sealed leisure batteries.

Typical 110 amp leisure battery now in common use

needs to cover the tops of the plates, there is usually a marker to guide you to the correct level. Older people amongst us will remember having to do this with their

In hot weather the batteries with screw caps also loose the liquid due to evaporation, but here in the UK the effects of weather are minimal. It is also a good idea to be methodical and make a note of when you had to top the battery up, this is because it is the first sign of a battery cell problem if the cell keeps on needing fresh water.

Keep you battery bank clean and dirt free

This applies to the Battery terminals; we have all seen the corrosion that can take place wherever battery acid is present, and this is no different on a battery bank. It is important to watch out for this and a good battery terminals.

battery bank for solar storage

preventative measure is to smear the terminals with petroleum jelly. A good trade name for this in the UK is (Vaseline), this will protest the battery terminals from corroding and develop the nasty white powder that forms around

Also inspect your connecting wires, a corroded or terminal could form a high resistance on a system that is connected in series and will prevent the batteries from charging and dis-charging correctly and creating an imbalance in the battery bank, with a possibility of reducing the battery banks performance and lowering the life of the batteries in the entire bank.

To conclude the article you are better of using AGM Batteries for any type of storage in a bank or indeed in two’s or three’s .and use a reputable make ,such as Trojan batteries that are on sale on www.batteriesontheweb.co.uk  and they will last you up to four times longer than a leisure battery. I also know though that people do use free flow lead acid batteries that are on sale as leisure batteries, but do not let them drain completely and look after your batteries no matter what type they are and they will last longer.

Have CAR BATTERIES Evolved Much over the years?

Have CAR BATTERIES changed Much

The other day I was just mulling over the progress that cars have made over the period of my life time, in the garage trade.  

The hard rubber casings of car starter batteries are replaced by simple polypropylene boxes. As a result, they’re easier to move from place to place. In the 1960’s nothing seemed to happen much, it was pretty

much statuesque at the small British Leyland dealership where I worked as an apprentice mechanic, but there were things happening in the big outside world of Batley in West Yorkshire.

The first front wheel drive Minis and 1100’s were beginning to hit the car market and they were becoming very popular. They were small and economical at the time, the ideal car for town and city driving. Other car companies were following suit. I remember the Rootes group bring out similar products such as the Hillman Imp and the Chrysler Horizon, all small economical to run cars and to become very popular.

One of reasons was the 1967 oil crisis that was fuelled by the beginning of the six day war and although there was no shortage of oil to both America and Europe, the price of oil inevitably started to rise. This made people look for smaller more fuel efficient cars,

Most car batteries came from the main dealers.

In the sixties most of the replacement batteries that we fitted would come from the main dealer garages, who in those days offered a daily parts delivery service. You would just order the car battery that you required and when it came fitted it to the car. In those days they were no comparing prices with other battery companies and that was the price you paid for a new battery.

Car batteries began to change in the 1970’s

The 1970’s brought the start of the revolution in car repairing and servicing in general. The garages had some serious completion for the first time. The first “fast fit centres” began to spring up; the idea came from America and started to spread across the UK. The sellers were exhaust parts and tyres, but this was quickly followed by the selling of car batteries and most other things to do with the upkeep of your car.

Some of the first multi branch companies were owned by the large tyre companies of the day. For example National tyres were owned by Dunlop. Other things that were developing were the opening of motor factors. These motor factors started to supply the fast fit companies, offering same day delivery with a large stock inventory. I can remember having to wait days sometimes to get parts for the car that you were repairing, including exhausts and car batteries? How things were changing?

New designs for car batteries

In the seventies people were becoming more affluent and had more disposable income to spend on their cars. Even the humble car battery was beginning to change. Because they were very heavy and clumsy to handle the battery became lighter by the invention of the “dry charged battery”. This meant that the big companies could now buy car batteries in bulk and not sell them as they were needed. Transporting the batteries became much easier and they were also easier to store. I remember visiting a centre in Huddersfield, where they had just bought 300 dry charged Exide batteries. I had never seen so many batteries in my life, it was a real eye opener.

This was soon to be the general trend. The car market had almost doubled and all these cars required maintenance and repairing.

Car batteries made in the UK in the 70’s

Companies that made car batteries were very common in the 1970’s and they would battle it out for price, if you gave them a reasonable order. This was more prominent in the late seventies as the batteries were better made and began to lose their reputation for being un-reliable, (although in my opinion this has still stuck with the older generation of car owners). Companies such as Oldham batteries from Manchester and Tungstone batteries from Loughborough in the midlands were household names, not forgetting Exide and Crompton batteries.

Batteries were a great way to make profits, especially if you kept them in stock. In some very cold winters we would have cars queuing down the road for a new battery fitting.

In the late seventies came the introduction of the first ever maintenance free batteries with “Selenium” technology, resulting in a lower self-discharge with low water consumption and lower all round costs.

The 1980’s brought in all sorts of car battery changes including new grid technology and vibration proof battery casings all helping to put more power into the same space area. All the new technologies were driven by the need to supply the cars with more power to cope with the increasing amount of electric add-ons the car manufacturers were increasingly fitting to their new models.

Scrap Battery Re-cycling is a Huge Success

Scrap Battery Re-cycling

I can remember a time in the not too distant past, when most of the companies that sold batteries, struggled to get rid of their old batteries. I have been selling car batteries for over 40 years now, and other types of batteries for the past 15 years, but I have never known a time when the old batteries were worth so much money.

Going back a few years I can remember an old sales ploy that would give the customer some money back, if they had an old battery to return, a sort of part exchange scheme, and in fact the older guys amongst us will still ask, “Do I get anything for the old battery”. Perhaps some companies still offer the same sales tactic, but I think that in general we keep the money earned from scrap batteries to supplement the lower profits that we make on the new batteries that we sell.

Like most things that we sell in today’s market place the price of batteries have been driven down by the internet, I am not saying that this is a bad thing; in fact it is a good thing for the consumers who can command a good price for a battery online. The best customers for us though are the ones that call into the garage for their battery testing and after buying a new battery, they leave us with their old battery and we can dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way, to its final destination and then re-cycling.

The ones we have problems with though are the golfers? For some reason the golfing fraternity do not to hand in their old battery. For some reason they always want to take it home with them and save it in their garage or other out-building. They must think that some sort of “magic “will resurrect the life back into the old battery. I any of you out there know why they do this please let me know?

Battery re-cycling by the bigger companies

Because of the rise in price of new lead, scrap lead has become a much sort after commodity. Countries are fighting to keep hold of the scrap batteries that are processed and made into new products and great efforts are made to make sure that old batteries are not just thrown away and dumped on landfill sites. In my opinion one of the most famous battery recycling companies is Exide batteries. Exide have got a machine that puts in scrap at one end and you get new batteries at the other end, a great achievement

Johnson Controls are also making huge efforts to secure and maintain the supply of waste batteries. Actually what people do not know is that 97% of all scrap batteries are recycled and companies like Johnson Controls see no reason that this cannot reach the 100% mark. They have taken the step of starting up a new web site in America that tells the public the nearest place to dispose of their old battery,(even golfers). For further reading about the Johnson Controls battery recycling plant… http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en/products/power_solutions/global_battery_recycling/our-recycling-facilities/united-states.html/

This is of course in North America, but other similar projects are taking place all over Europe and here in the UK. Scrap batteries are processed and recycled with as much importance as they are in the USA. The old batteries are stripped down to their basic components and are then sent to another plant that converts the waste parts into new batteries. Even the plastic battery casing are ground up and reused to make new http://www.batteryrecycling.com/battery+recycling+process  and is well worth a look at.

batteries. This is why many new batteries have black casings. The old plastic grindings are mixed with new materials which are coloured black. So if you see a white or clear battery, then it is made of brand new materials and is not recycled. I find that a good website that explains about the recycling of different batteries is…

I must admit that I am proud to be in an industry that can say that it can recycle 97% of the waste and perhaps one day the figure will be 100%.

Eric Roberts

Hi I would like to introduce myself. I have worked in the Garage and tyre and I am MD for online battery company www.batteriesontheweb.co.uk. I have worked for a couple for national tyre companies in my younger days, before starting my first business. I now own a garage and MOT testing centre, here in the UK called Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre, and I am a keen blogger about anything to do with cars and their related products that will help my business. We are members of Point-S and Motor-Codes and are also a Unipart Car Care Centre and of course Tyre-safe.

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Charging Stations for ELECTRIC CARS are still Not a Common Site in our Towns and Cities

Electric cars and other fuels -are they the future?

When I first started working as a mechanic in the 1960s not a single person on the Planet would have dreamt that one day we would start running out of oil and the the Earth would start to suffer from “Global Warming”.

But now here in 2014 we are all faced with great challengers that ultimately may lead to the demise of mankind. Scientists that are funded by various Governments all over the World are working frantically to come up with new ideas of replacing the dependency of oil based products. Especially the much loved cars

Hydrogen will play a major part of replacing oil dependency

that are fueled by petrol and diesel that we all drive around in.

 The problem is that we are still relying on petrol and diesel driven vehicles too much including the massive number of lorries that transport the goods and food that we rely on to survive. To my knowledge there are no new types of engines to drive these trucks other than diesel and Bio-Fuel derived alternatives.

In the USA  the EPA (United States Environment Protection Agency)   and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are working together to work on establishing the production of  a new generation of cleaner engine vehicles, therefore reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, ranging from the smallest cars to the largest lorries on our roads...

For more reading...

“The complementary EPA and NHTSA standards that make up the Heavy-Duty National Program apply to combination tractors (semi trucks), heavy-duty pick-up trucks and vans, and vocational vehicles (including buses and refuse or utility trucks). Together, these standards will cut greenhouse gas emissions and domestic oil use significantly. This program responds to President Obama’s 2010 request to jointly establish greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency standards for the medium- and heavy-duty highway vehicle sector.”... http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/regs-heavy-duty.htm

Electric car charging stations should be the future

Nearer home here in the UK a chip development company think that the charging stations will become too cumbersome, I must agree that this is my opinion too, I could never imagine rows and rows of charging stations the size of football stadiums springing up in every town and city to cope with a sudden sale of electric cars . Although these electric cars can be charged at home, I dread to think of chaos caused when motorists

Charging stations like this will become common place

are stranded in the middle of nowhere with flat batteries, just as they now run out of petrol in to-days cars, there has to be an alternative to charging stations ?

As I write this post technology company “Qualcomm” http://www.qualcomm.eu/?referrer=de  are testing electric cars that allow the batteries to be re-charged while the car is been driven, a great step forward.

More reading...  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18984160

Eric Roberts

Hi I would like to introduce myself. I have worked in the Garage and tyre and Battery business now for 40 years. I have worked for a couple for national tyre companies in my younger days, before starting my first business. I now own a garage and MOT testing centre, here in the UK called Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre, and I am a keen blogger about anything to do with cars and their related products that will help my business. We are members of Point-S and Motor-Codes and are also a Unipart Car Care Centre and of course Tyre-safe.

Car Battery Failure Warning Signs

Car battery failure on bygone vehicles

To be honest we do not seem to get the number of cars turning up for a new battery on their car, without the customer having a battery test first. A few years ago you would know when the battery was getting ready to be replaced, because it would slowly but surely start to let you down after a period of time. I always used to say that the battery gave you time to save up for a new one.

The old battery would let you down by starting to turn the engine over at a slower pace over a period of time, until eventually the cars battery would give up on you and you would have to buy a replacement battery. I am going back to the days of the Ford Granada and the Vauxhall Victor, both cars were very big and powerful with matching batteries (big and powerful).

As a guy who has always sold batteries we have marketed many different makes of batteries. In the seventies and eighties we sold British made batteries, such as Apollo-Power batteries and Tungstone batteries along with Exide and of course the famous (I told em Oldham) as advertised on TV. Battery makers would deal with small companies like ourselves, as long as we bought a hundred units or more, this gave a great chance to compete with the bigger companies and multi-nationals of that time.

We also used to test a battery with a great big battery discharger that looked like and worked like a four bar

Older cars like this Ford Cortina would make their batteries

 last much longer

electric fire. You would put this onto the battery terminals until the battery acid started to bubble, at that stage the customer was told that they needed a replacement battery. This method was not very efficient but it was the only thing that we had to use in those days.

What affects the car battery in today’s modern vehicles                         

Today’s cars are completely different animals. The batteries on some cars will now last five to seven years, without needing replacement, especially the cars from Japan and South Korea. I think that it is because the cars have better electrical systems than European cars, such as Renault and Peugeot. Other than a faulty alternator, the batteries on more modern cars will just fail on you and unlike their older counterparts, will often need replacing almost straight away. So the first sign may be dimming lights or a bad reading on the cars ammeter. If this happens then buy a new battery, otherwise the old one will let you down where you least expect it to.

Also the batteries go at a faster rate because the modern cars have many more electrics than their older counterparts. Everything is now controlled by the car electrics, doors, windows, car computer, not forgetting the power of the cars modern lighting systems, all this adds up to the rapid decline of the power of the cars battery, when failure is imminent.

Peak times of the year for your battery to fail are in winter, when the weather can be very cold, or the summer when the weather is very hot. Many drivers know about winter and the cold affecting the car battery, but not the summer. What the summer does is to help to boil the acid in the battery. On very hot days and in hot countries, it is not uncommon for the acid in the battery to boil away completely, with the hot weather combining with the hot state of the engine will actually boil the battery acid and force the acid out of the battery vents. When the car cools down at night the battery is left empty and then fails. Of course if you know about this then you can keep topping the battery up, therefor keeping the battery alive and in good condition.

The most common thing that kills your car battery is AGE. If you think that the battery has failed you after say a couple of years then you should get the battery tested, this can be done at most garages or Auto-centres for free. Another type of customer that we like to see is the one that has just bought a second hand car. For some unknown reason, I reckon that at least half the batteries fail after the first six months and because they do not know that much about the cars history, then they buy a new battery, and that’s great for us.