Battery Charging

EZduzit101

New Gal here with two battery questions. I purchased my cart 3 years ago, and replaced the old batteries with 605 Trojans($105 ea.) I forget now what the price for the 105's were, but I choked! The guy installing them for me said I didn't need to get l05's, 605's would be fine. Was this a mistake? Will someone explain the difference, and should I notice a difference in any way? Reminder: I just use this cart for gardening around on 3 ascres, flat terrain....and to taxi my cat around, late afternoon rides! Gotta keep the cat happy!

Also...I broke these things in, and maintained them for three years now exactly as instructed on this forum, ...no problems! I don't have that kind of money just laying around! I charged them up last night, and in the past as well, takes about 19 hours. Just wanted to know if this is normal? No problems at all!

Thanks in advance!

BGW

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gornoman

The T105's are the industry standard. Good solid golf cart batteries. Your 605's will have a shorter life, but should serve you well as long as you keep treating them nice. The 19 hour charger sounds way too long. What kind of charger is it?

EZduzit101

The charger :

Total Charge III
E Z GO TEXTRON
Industrial battery charger
Model #26984

This is the charger I got with the cart. The batteries were down 50% when I started charging them last night. I checked the pack after charging was completed...the digital tester said 39v, which is 100%+. The charger shut off automatically, as it should.

When you say the 605's will have a shorter life, how short?...considering I WILL continue to maintain them properly? How long do the 105's last?

Thanks in advance!

madoc1

you should not let them go below 70%. do you have a soc, or state of charge meter? you can watch this and when it gets down about 3 bars, it time to charge. a better option is a digital read out like scotty and others sell. then you can always keep up with voltage. many say to recharge after every use. also fun as you can leave it on all the time as it uses so little juice. i walk by mine and can tell right where the batts are.

scottyb

deep cycle wet cell batteries require a 3 stage recharge cycle.
As copied from my website;
Three Stage Battery Charging

The BULK stage involves about 80% of the recharge, wherein the charger current is held constant (in a constant current charger), and voltage increases. The properly sized charger will give the battery as much current as it will accept up to charger capacity (25% of battery capacity in amp hours), and not raise a wet battery over 125° F, or an AGM or GEL (valve regulated) battery over 100° F.

The ABSORPTION stage (the remaining 20%, approximately) has the charger holding the voltage at the charger's absorption voltage (between 14.1 VDC and 14.8 VDC, depending on charger set points) and decreasing the current until the battery is fully charged. Some charger manufacturers call this absorption stage an equalization stage. We don't agree with this use of the term. If the battery won't hold a charge, or the current does not drop after the expected recharge time, the battery may have some permanent sulphation.

The FLOAT stage is where the charge voltage is reduced to between 13.0 VDC and 13.8 VDC and held constant, while the current is reduced to less than 1% of battery capacity. This mode can be used to maintain a fully charged battery indefinitely.

Recharge time can be approximated by dividing the amp hours to be replaced by 90% of the rated output of the charger. For example, a 100 amp hour battery with a 10 % discharge would need 10 amps replaced. Using a 5 amp charger, we have 10 amp hours divided by 90% of 5 amps (.9x5) amps = 2.22 hour recharge time estimate. A deeply discharged battery deviates from this formula, requiring more time per amp to be replaced.

Recharge frequency recommendations vary from expert to expert. It appears that depth of discharge affects battery life more than frequency of recharge. For example, recharging when the equipment is not going to be used for a while (meal break or whatever), may keep the average depth of discharge above 50% for a service day. This basically applies to battery applications where the average depth of discharge falls below 50% in a day, and the battery can be fully recharged once during a 24 hour period.

Your charger is not really performing an optimum charge.... and the T605s cost less because they have fewer lead plates in them which means they store fewer amps. Less amperage results in a shorter run time. This is okay in some situations. I call them batteries for the 'trailer park cart'. Such a cart is used for short trips on flat ground and seem to do fine with the smaller battery.
What Gman refers to is deep discharging small batteries (trying to do a big battery job) Deep discharging will result in fewer charge cycles before the battery is played out.
Typically a golf cart battery can take about 700 deep discharges... or 5000 shallow ones.
Hope this helps

EZduzit101

Hi madoc1...Yes, I do have a soc meter, but not anything fancy like you speak of. I think this is the first time I let the batteries get down to 50%. I've been on the road alot lately, and it sneaked up on me! Even with the soc meter, I usually check the pack with a digital tester, several times a week. I didn't know if a 19 hr. charge time was normal.

Thanks for your input!

EZduzit101

Hi scottyb...When you say that my charger is not really performing an optimum charge...is something wrong with my charger? Please explain. I know that this battery thing has been beat to death on this forum! HA!

Thanks for your input!

scottyb

sounds like your charger was not putting out a high level 1st stage and it sounded like it was spending a lot of time on the low end? 16 hours is okay if the pack is truly 50% or less but not for the usual charging, that would be more like a 5 hour charge......
I just ran into a powerwise today that only came on at 15 amps after a draw-down machine had drained the pack to 50%.
I would have rather seen this charger kick on at 20 amps for 20-30 minutes and shock the battery back to life... reversing sulfation and stratification

EZduzit101

Thanks scottyb...I will try to absorb and understand this info.