Bongo Fury

Here's the thing.
Got a new Elecsol 100 LB this week and put it to charge as per instructions. After 36 hours hadn't reached full charge - only got to about 12.40v. Thought what the hell, put it in the Bongo and took it for a drive today. Split charger charged it up a bit (drove for about 20 mins), but I've read somewhere that after use a battery needs up to an hour to give an accurate voltage reading (not sure how accurate that is?).
Anyway, I waited an hour and had a reading of 12.66v. Checked every now and again and 2 hours later it had dropped to 12.42! I'm convinced there is something wrong with the battery, as it seemed not to charge properly and is now not holding it's charge. I disconnected everything from the + terminal after the drive to make sure nothing else was draining the battery.
So, should I have given it longer to charge initially, does the cold weather drain a battery that quickly, have I done anything else wrong, or will I be on the phone first thing monday demanding a replacement?

Andrew

hembramacho wrote:Here's the thing.
Got a new Elecsol 100 LB this week and put it to charge as per instructions. After 36 hours hadn't reached full charge - only got to about 12.40v. Thought what the hell, put it in the Bongo and took it for a drive today. Split charger charged it up a bit (drove for about 20 mins), but I've read somewhere that after use a battery needs up to an hour to give an accurate voltage reading (not sure how accurate that is?).
Anyway, I waited an hour and had a reading of 12.66v. Checked every now and again and 2 hours later it had dropped to 12.42! I'm convinced there is something wrong with the battery, as it seemed not to charge properly and is now not holding it's charge. I disconnected everything from the + terminal after the drive to make sure nothing else was draining the battery.
So, should I have given it longer to charge initially, does the cold weather drain a battery that quickly, have I done anything else wrong, or will I be on the phone first thing monday demanding a replacement?

Andrew

Ron Miel should be yer man for this one as he's got one and is top dog at checking things out etc. - hopefully he can give some comparative figures

Sounds like a duff battery to me.
When my batteries are delivered they usually are 12.6volts or so.

A bit of a recharge will put them to 12.8ish, but we are talking 12 hour charge, not 36 .

So even without a top up, a fairly new battery should be 12.6 or more, and my guess is if you cant get it to stay there, then its knackered.

A drop test should show if its duff or not, but I think you have done all you can to satisfy yourself that it is.

madmile wrote:Sounds like a duff battery to me.
When my batteries are delivered they usually are 12.6volts or so.

A bit of a recharge will put them to 12.8ish, but we are talking 12 hour charge, not 36 .

So even without a top up, a fairly new battery should be 12.6 or more, and my guess is if you cant get it to stay there, then its knackered.

A drop test should show if its duff or not, but I think you have done all you can to satisfy yourself that it is.

Thanks for the replies. It was about 12.20v when it was delivered if I remember correctly. TBH I've done so many multimeter readings over the last few days I'm not sure where I am!
I feel that monday morning phonecall coming on - I'm not much into the 5 year warranty after all!
By the way, what's a drop test?

Cheers

Andrew

Basically I think they short out the battery and measure the reaction over a 10 second period. It tells you if the battery is capable of holding charge or not.
I must say however, that in 5 years of ordering leisure batteries I have never had one read 12.2 volts on delivery.
I am pretty sure my supplier does not charge them prior to delivery - only every 4-5 months on rotation.
It is however, important to store batteries fully charged, and if yours has been left low and with the last months cold weather, it can be enough to finish them off.

madmile wrote:Basically I think they short out the battery and measure the reaction over a 10 second period. It tells you if the battery is capable of holding charge or not.
I must say however, that in 5 years of ordering leisure batteries I have never had one read 12.2 volts on delivery.
I am pretty sure my supplier does not charge them prior to delivery - only every 4-5 months on rotation.
It is however, important to store batteries fully charged, and if yours has been left low and with the last months cold weather, it can be enough to finish them off.

Thanks for that.
Next question - where can I get one of those done?
Having read a few 'other' forum posts regarding Elecsol's customer care, it might be wise to get a bit of backup to my argument that the LB is goosed!

Andrew

A drop test could be done by any battery center.
Basicly a low resistance accross the terminals, high load to th battery, defctive cell will bubble, 12.2 is very low should be up to wards 14 v full charge.
36 hours charge I would expect 13.6 s a min.
Battery is FUBAR ask for a replacement
Cheers
Mark

Yup the Elecsol batteries are standard lead acid so it should reach 14.4 volts on charge when its fully charged.
What type of charger have you been using to give it its initial charge and do you know what its maximum charging current is ?

Normally the lead plates are "charged" when manufactured, and then mounted in the batteries dry, without battery acid. Only when they are about to be sold are they filled with battery acid, at which point they are as charged as they were when the plates are first made.
Normally you would expect the battery voltage whilst under charge to be around the 14.4v, they will then drop to about about 12.6-12.8 volts at rest (@20°C or 12.2-12.4 @0°C) usually within a few hours.
It doesn't sound like you have a dead cell as otherwise you would be at around 12.0 under charge and 10.5 at rest.
The voltages your getting would make it seem they may have filled it with the wrong dilution of battery acid, you can only test this by measuring the specific gravity of the acid which should be about 1.25 for the Elecsol batteries (lower than normally expected).
The drop test is a matter of putting the battery under heavy load similar to the current drawn by a starter and measuring the voltage drop (from 12.6 approx), it shouldn't drop below 9.6 volts under such a load, most places that sell batteries will test it for you.

g8dhe wrote:What type of charger have you been using to give it its initial charge and do you know what its maximum charging current is ?

Hi Geoff
One of these

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165629

Andrew

Well that has more than enough capability to charge the battery in 36 Hours, I assume that its charge complete light didn't come on ?
In which case time to start getting the battery replaced.

I got my Elecsol 100 a couple of months ago, and mine hasn't risen above 12.4 neither. I haven't had chance to look at it properly yet, and put the problem down to a voltage drop in my wiring (I'm using a voltmeter panel permanently wired in to the vehicle. I'll have to put a meter on in tomorrow to check for certain.

DON'T PANIC..................We wont need them soon.....................

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... icity.html

g8dhe wrote:Well that has more than enough capability to charge the battery in 36 Hours, I assume that its charge complete light didn't come on ?
In which case time to start getting the battery replaced.

That's what I presumed also. No, the complete light didn't come on.

dvisor wrote:I got my Elecsol 100 a couple of months ago, and mine hasn't risen above 12.4 neither. I haven't had chance to look at it properly yet, and put the problem down to a voltage drop in my wiring (I'm using a voltmeter panel permanently wired in to the vehicle. I'll have to put a meter on in tomorrow to check for certain.

That's interesting - I've been using a seperate multimeter to take readings, as I disconnected everything from the + terminal, just incase something wired to it was draining the battery, but to be honest that has had a mind of its own at times!
I think I'll ring the supplier on monday for 'advice'. As soon as I get dressed I'll pop out to see what the voltage is this morning.

Andrew

The Elecsol website and FAQ should give you enough to go on. If you can borrow a Hydrometer to measure the SG that should be the clincher.

Here's the gist of a PM I sent to mikeonb4c, a few weeks back, when he was considering whether his non-Elecsol L.B. was the cause of cut-out problems he was getting with a prototype Bongo leccy blanket controller (don't all rush!):

"Just ran our Eberspacher heater briefly before heading to the airport with Di. Elecsol l.b terminal voltage (at 12v socket in van) was initially 12.9v, which reduced to 11.8v while the heater drew its start phase 200w, so 16.9 amps. After 3 minutes of that, when the heater dropped down to its 40w continuous load, the terminal voltage went up to 12.2v It then finally settled at 12.4v switched off/off load. Hope that helps. If you need an 8 amps result, I'll contrive a 100w load when I get time."

Have never deep discharged it, so have no idea how the terminal voltage reduces at lower states of charge. Hope that might help.

BTW, that was in the middle of the big freeze, so my guess is that the battery, up front in the cold, was at about -2 or -3C at the time.