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Please play nicely.  No one wants to listen/read a keyboard warriors rants....

Author Topic: So what have you done to your car today?  (Read 5568239 times)

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Sir Tigger KC

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Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« Reply #28365 on: Yesterday at 19:16:12 »
Started it for the first time in 7 weeks. No issues to report.  :y
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Dave G

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Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« Reply #28366 on: Today at 11:06:30 »
Fitted a new battery. Car had been garaged for about 3 weeks over Christmas when I noticed the door locks were very sluggish to open, so put the battery on the charger which went right to current limit of 8A.

Turns out that with no load and the car in the garage, it had lost 50% capacity in just 5 days.  Checked quiescent current and that was less than 50mA after settling down, so no problem there. Alternator charging to about 14.7V so that’s OK too.

Battery was 6 years old or thereabouts, so about right I guess.
Anyway, all good now!   :y
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TheBoy

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Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« Reply #28367 on: Today at 11:31:52 »
Quote from: Dave G on Today at 11:06:30
so put the battery on the charger which went right to current limit of 8A.
Nothing actually wrong with that, as 3 weeks of 50mA had taken a bit out of it.

They key is how long it takes a high current for - the longer the better, as that's an indication of it's capacity. Making it over simplistic, on a 80Ahr  battery (cant remember what Omega is? 74Ahr?), from totally flat (ignoring that would shag the battery), 8A would be needed for 10 hours to get 80AHr back in (yes, that's massively over simplified).


Again, overly simplistically, that 50mA drain will take:
0.05A x 24hr x 21d = 25AHr
from the battery.

That's quite a lot, and will reduce the capacity of the battery each time you do it. If it's a regular occurrence, consider a battery conditioner you plug in every time you park up for more than a few days.
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Dave G

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Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« Reply #28368 on: Today at 11:55:50 »
I understand your logic there.
Sod’s Law would have it become too drained to start because I forgot to put the charger on, and I need to get somewhere urgently!

Just feel more confident knowing it’s in tip-top shape.
I’ll monitor the state of the new one over time and compare.

Cheers for the advice.
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TheBoy

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Re: So what have you done to your car today?
« Reply #28369 on: Today at 13:46:49 »
Oh, at 6 years old, the old battery would be getting tired anyway.

If you still have it, worth charging up, and if it's any good, keeping for that emergency
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