Thread: More Electricity Questions

Hi Gavin, your trip drive times would be very good for your batteries but how much driving did you do before hand and did you measure the batteries before starting your trip.


At 12.4v, your batteries are around the 80% SoC mark, which is not bad at all, but as you had just done a couple of long drives, I too would have expected a little better, but again, this would all depend on the state of the condition of the batteries before your trip.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Gavin, your trip drive times would be very good for your batteries but how much driving did you do before hand and did you measure the batteries before starting your trip.

At 12.4v, your batteries are around the 80% SoC mark, which is not bad at all, but as you had just done a couple of long drives, I too would have expected a little better, but again, this would all depend on the state of the condition of the batteries before your trip.

Thanks and good point Tim and the charge would have been a little low from a couple of weeks of short runs around the burbs, and even worse, starting the old girl momentarily to get to something behind in the garage.

I should note, I put a new alternator in during the trip to Qld last spring - when I could not get hold of you via email over a towing related electrical issue.

I think I'll bang on my little 7 stage charger for a bit more top up and include the 8th stage maintenance charge (no lithiums fitted!)

I find the best method is to leave the chargers on at least 24 hrs after they hit full charge.
I also isolate my battery's when doing this so I can see that they both respond well and monitor which took the longest etc.
You can drop a cell in either battery and pull the other down all the time..
hopefully gav they just need a little TLC.

If it's a multi-stage charger with a float function then I think you can just leave it on indefinitely. It will just wake up, test the battery, charge if necessary and go back to sleep.

Originally Posted by josh.huber

I find the best method is to leave the chargers on at least 24 hrs after they hit full charge.
I also isolate my battery's when doing this so I can see that they both respond well and monitor which took the longest etc.
You can drop a cell in either battery and pull the other down all the time..
hopefully gav they just need a little TLC.

That is exactly what i do with mine,but as Tim has advised,don't leave the charger on indefinitely.

The start battery on the D4 lasted almost 5yrs,the auxiliary 4.

Not sure if this adds anything but Tim has advised me when connecting the charger to put the positive on the starter battery and the earth to the negative on the car, not on the battery.
cheers
David

I could be wrong for sure, but I think I have read previously that is recommended charging practice in the D3/4 manual, is that right?

Hi Mick and it is actually a safely requirement when working on any vehicle’s cranking battery, not just Land Rovers.

The danger is that if the battery has been worked hard or is faulty, it can and will gas, and this applies to wet cell and AGMs.

If you connect both leads to the battery, as you connect the second lead, you may cause a spark and this is at the very time you are in close proximity to the battery.

Hydrogen, the gas being expelled by the battery, is both easily ignited and highly explosive.

So the safe way to connect to a battery is first make the positive connection onto the battery’s positive ( + ) terminal, but make the negative connection to a good earth some distance from the battery.

This practice both reduces the chance of an ignition, but if one does occur, you are not hanging over the battery if it does explode, thus reducing the injury potential.




On another point, some new battery chargers with CEC ( California Energy Commission ) rating, will first charge the battery, then go into float and will, as per CEC requirements, turn off and wait to the battery needs a maintenance charge before automatically turning on again.

This type of charge is good for a battery that is in top condition, but does little the rejuvenate a battery in poor condition.

Also, with standard types of battery chargers, where they charge the battery and then go into float mode INDEFINITELY, they too do not do much for rejuvenate a battery in poor condition, but can eventually DRY the battery out and this will damage the battery.

A simple solution is to buy a 240VAC time from say Bunning, ( around $20 ) and either set it to run 12 hours ON and 12 hours OFF, for rejuvenating a battery in poor condition. Or 4 hours ON and 20 hour OFF for batteries in good condition but are not going to be used for long periods of time.

Or you can just connect a solar panel and it works the same way.