Battery life and charging

[hhansen59]

I have a question concerning battery life and charging. I recently received a sales promo about lithium batteries for carts and it the info it stated keeping the lithium batteries fully charged, no matter how small the drain, doesn't harm lithium life like it does lead batteries.

Is it best to keep lead batteries fully charged after use regardless of the needed charge or will they last longer if you run down the charge before charging? Reason for question is that after a round of golf or a trip around the neighborhood my charge reads at 80-90+ and I always plug it in until fully charged.

[LukeL]

Yes- always plug in your charger. Lead acid batteries should always be completely charged or the plates will sulfate.

[cgtech]

See attached chart. It's clear that the "more full" you keep your batteries charged, the more cycles you will get from them. One cycle is one use & one recharge.

[nickdalzell1]

I really never understood why it's so common to find people asking about battery 'memory' these days. I mean how long has it been since I've personally seen a NiCD battery? Didn't cell phones give those up in like the 1990s? The amount of times I have to re-educate folks about not totally discharging them before recharging them astounds me.

[cgtech]

Originally Posted by nickdalzell1

I really never understood why it's so common to find people asking about battery 'memory' these days. I mean how long has it been since I've personally seen a NiCD battery? Didn't cell phones give those up in like the 1990s? The amount of times I have to re-educate folks about not totally discharging them before recharging them astounds me.

100% true. But in contrast to that, I do believe an occasional "long run" is also good, don't let em get too lazy. (Lead cart batteries). The reason I say this is because of my own testing on "lame packs" that came from fleets, hit em with "the magical pulse devices" & exercise them some. I thought it was "voodoo" too. I took a "44 minute pack" to a "75 minute pack" with several charge/discharge cycles. I did that test just to see if the claims were real. I can't say exactly how much of the results of that test was purely because of the device, but my parts manager did spend his own money to crack his own skepticism. I can't mathematically say just how much it did (in comparison to just exersizing the batteries back to health). But I believe it has a effect. I have other examples that I have compared that I see as benefits.
I once seen a set of 8 year old batteries that still showed a voltage level that was 0.08v common voltage amongst each other, balanced at a level I thought would be impossible. Yes, they were "worn out", but they ran even until their end. Unbalanced batteries is a common point of failure in a series pack. (Not only when 12v is drawn from 2 of them).

I think the "magic chemical" additives are all BS, they can't stand around for the "long haul" to fix your batteries, I do believe some of the "pulse" stuff can help (based on voltage readings I have got from old batteries).

Number one is this- charge your lead-acid batteries after every use, keep them full (please, it's not the Ni-cd drill batteries from the 80's that actually needed that). We can stop that myth if we inform people! I still get these related calls every 2 weeks or so.

[nickdalzell1]

I've seen those 'power-pulse' devices, first confused it with an el-cheapo voltage reducer at first...

To me they did have an effect--especially if the car weren't driven for a few weeks--it drained them all to ZERO! After removing the 10th one, I declared them to be snake oil, akin to those fuel line magnets designed to give you 100 MPG on your old '78 LTD wagon, or the idea that racing stickers gives your '91 Civic more horsepower.

Using the amps scale at the time, I noticed that the drain was about the same as having one idiot light lit on a car for an extended period. It was a small parasitic drain. My Honda Ridgeline has a lamp that won't go out if you lock all the doors but leave the split power rear glass open--it says 'Back Window Open'. it's a small LED surface mount lamp. It managed to drain that truck's battery to zilch in a few days.

[cgtech]

You are totally right on some, they would do just as you described, drain the batteries! Any benefit would be negated by the fact that it would stay on until the battery pack was totally dead. That was horrible engineering! No doubt about that! Stupid! Times have changed! Busting up sulphate crystals isn't just a fools errand tho. Keeping plates in good conversion isn't only in the realm of "voodoo" snake oil. Yes, it must know when to "shut off" to not leave the batteries un usable! That was covered years ago for properly engineered products. The "eBay one" can ignore that.