breaking in new batteries

[john11139]

Just got 6 new Crown batteries to replace the ones that were missing along with cables when I bought my Carryall. Over $800. with no core. I want to make sure I brake them in right. From what I read you should charge them fully and use them till 70% remains. What should my voltage be then? I don't use the cart a lot so can I just charge them when it drops to %70. I understand you should do this at least 30 to 50 times. It might take me all winter to use it that much.

[mrgolf]

Charge them when you are not using cart. No matter how much you drive it plug charger in and let it fully charge each time you use it. Keep it on charger when not in use. The batteries will get broken in under normal use.

[alchemy]

Originally Posted by john11139

Just got 6 new Crown batteries to replace the ones that were missing along with cables when I bought my Carryall. Over $800. with no core. I want to make sure I brake them in right. From what I read you should charge them fully and use them till 70% remains. What should my voltage be then? I don't use the cart a lot so can I just charge them when it drops to %70. I understand you should do this at least 30 to 50 times. It might take me all winter to use it that much.

The original method is to charge at 80% SOC, look it up, and that was supposed to be optimum for battery life. I respect that others more experienced have changed that but I don't know why. I have roughly followed that with a set of new NAPA's I got and they are going on 7 years now and still no sign of going bad.
New, my batteries were all about 6.32 before charging and they were dated less than a couple months old.
Make sure you never let them get to or below the plates, always use distilled water, and make sure the levels are all the same. Wash them down frequently. Sometimes a battery or cell will suddenly decrease or not take a load like the others but it sometimes just goes away and back to normal after a few charge discharge cycles. If you fill your batteries with a lot of water like I do, from 1/4" to 3/8" above the plates to the level indicator at the base of the cylinder opening you may need to take it way down once or twice, like 50% SOC before charging. The symptoms I need to do that is when the charger shuts off too soon after adding water. It charges normal after taking it way down once or twice. That's with my yamaha and lester charger. Not sure about CC OBC. (The water needs to mix and the electrolyte to become uniform again) If you add a lot of water like I do also expect full charge and stable volts to be different and the SOC needs adjusted for that. Stable full charge voltage increases or decreases with concentration/ dilution of the electrolyte but the amp hrs or use rate should stay the same.
There is a sticky all about batteries but I still do mine the old way because I've had great "luck" with my batteries and I don't know why the old way was changed. I keep detailed notes and logs on my batteries which I believe is good to do.

[yawood]

The voltages you are looking for to indicate the various state-of-charge are shown in this table from Scotty.

[scottyb]

Every cart should have a digital battery voltage meter!
Observing the pack voltage will make the batteries last longer than anything else.
Our meters are simple 2 wire self powering digital LED which come with the chart posted above.

[Fairtax4me]

Originally Posted by john11139

Just got 6 new Crown batteries to replace the ones that were missing along with cables when I bought my Carryall. Over $800. with no core. I want to make sure I brake them in right. From what I read you should charge them fully and use them till 70% remains. What should my voltage be then? I don't use the cart a lot so can I just charge them when it drops to %70. I understand you should do this at least 30 to 50 times. It might take me all winter to use it that much.

Take it out and run it for 20-30 minutes straight for about 15 times. This can be once every day, or every couple days, depending on when you have time.
Charge after every use. That will be sufficient to "break-in" the batteries. After that use it whenever you need to for however long you need to, but use a voltmeter to make sure you don't discharge the pack below 50%. If you don't use the cart often, you'll probably never get it that low anyway.

Always charge it After every use. Using the cart and then parking it with partially discharged batteries will harm the batteries.

[PingEye3]

See attached battery Guides:

[alchemy]

Originally Posted by scottyb

Every cart should have a digital battery voltage meter!
Observing the pack voltage will make the batteries last longer than anything else.
Our meters are simple 2 wire self powering digital LED which come with the chart posted above.

absolutely agree

[alchemy]

I'd love to clear up contradictions about maintaining batteries if we could do so and maybe address the reasons why once and for all. For example, I am aware that club car or trojan, I forget, mentions "just keeping the plates a little covered" for example. One person recently in the forum mentioned that as also a way to keep electrolyte from venting from the caps. However, there are also professional sources, that say to fill them to the base of the cylinder. I think that goes way back to the first time I ever encountered a battery maybe 45 years ago and when I worked in a gas station. I've seen that recently as well from professional sources or manufacturers and for golf cart batteries. That's just one thing of maybe 4 contradictions and maybe the problem is it just gets too involved. For example also in this one I suspect variation of voltage per cell should be as minimal as possible, I think, and voltage will vary if they are not the same level or concentration. I'd guess it wouldn't matter if you just kept the cells covered. Your voltage is higher than if they were filled to the base of the cylinder but that's not going to mean more amp hrs. Also you run more risk of getting them down to the plates . For me I'm fine just filling them every 4-6 months, which brings up a main factor, how much you use it. For me it's hard to say. I mostly just drive around on the property hauling me and various stuff. Sometimes I might just go 1/4 mile a day with no load and others 5- 10 miles and pulling trees and pushing vehicles. Typically I go 3 or 4 days before I put it on the charger overnight when it reaches 80% SOC. Now of course that's another contradiction. Many are saying now and even including certain professionals that is wrong and should be charged at every chance. Granted, I can see a possible reason why but not sure if that's the reason or why the 80% SOC standard is being changed. When I first saw the 80& SOC standard everywhere about 10 years ago I thought well maybe that's good but wouldn't it even be better to keep it "topped" just like a car battery is. The reasoning was deep cycle vs. car battery and the meaning of "deep cycle." Still even though I understood that deep cycles were made to discharge more I thought they really aren't much different, just heavier plates to take it. But that also led me to think "well, even so, they would last longer if kept "topped" as much as possible ike a car battery?" So, I can see that as maybe one reason why the change. I also thought back then that "too many charges" maybe even 3-4X as many over the battery life, might take away from that. I'm personally reluctant to change because my batteries have done very well. For me I'd like to hear more stories behind this. These two and the other two I didn't mention yet. The 3rd, is what is the reasoning behind taking them way down 10-16 times or something when they are new? As stated elsewhere I have found reasoning for once or twice but not sure that is even the same reason. I forget the 4th one right now.

[kernal]

Some references: https://www.trojanbattery.com/tech-s...y-maintenance/

https://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/Tr...UsersGuide.pdf

https://batteryuniversity.com/