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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Attempted Murder: Battery

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Bruce Baker
Captain

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USA
402 Posts

Initially Posted - 04/14/2006 : 08:16:14

They say that batteries don't die of old age, they are all murdered. I've done my best to kill mine! I took it home to charge it, and on the way back to the boat, it fell over on its side and lost half its liquid. Having no battery acid to fill it up, I used spring water.

Having learned my lesson about taking the battery home, I put my charger on the battery on the boat and left it there for a day. Supposedly, this battery charger has three levels, and it won't fry your battery. Wrong! The battery was mostly empty when I got back. Again I filled it up with spring water.

After being un-used all winter, the battery is nearly dead. What should I do now? Charge it up? Buy a new battery and a new charger? This battery is a group 27 deep cycle, two years old. I do mostly day sailing, and the biggest electric demand is the CD player.

Bruce Baker
Falls Church, VA
"Yee Ha" 3573
'83SR/SK

Edited by - on

Leon Sisson
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1893 Posts

Response Posted - 04/14/2006 : 09:00:12

Bruce,

I suspect the electrolyte which spilled out of your battery was of a higher specific gravity than the water which was used to replace it. (You could check for horrendous acid damage where it spilled to verify this.

) Since acid was replaced with water, the battery can't reach normal full charge voltage, and so no voltage regulator is ever going to conclude the battery has had enough charging.

As for what to do about it now, you could try:<ul><li>topping the battery up with acid,</li>
<li>charging the dickens out of it,</li>
<li>pouring out the electrolyte (save it for later reuse),</li>
<li>refilling the battery with new acid,</li>
<li>trickle charge the heck out of it some more,</li>
<li>all the while monitoring the specific gravity and 'resting' voltage (to determine resting voltage, be sure the cells are topped up, charge for a couple hours after adding any liquid, stop charging for an hour or so, then measure voltage)</li>
<li>You may need to replace the acid more than once to get the maximum (charged) specific gravity (and hence voltage) up to industry spec.</li>
<li>There would also seem to be a significant likelyhood of not all cells responding to treatment equally, so you may need to flush some cells more times than others.</li></ul>
The saved 'weak' electrolyte could be used to top up older batteries which are nearing the end of their useful life. Be real sure to store any acid in an acid-proof container with acid-proof lid. Glass works for the container, but acid will eat its way past a metal lid. Tight sealing glass lids are seldom seen outside chem labs.

Disclaimer: I haven't bothered to go to this much trouble myself to revive a battery, so this is all theory (a.k.a. B.S.) from my point of view. I just go buy a new battery when the old one will no longer take or hold a charge. Depending on what you consider your time worth vs. how curious you are to see if any of this works, it's your call whether to replace or attempt to revive. By the way, didn't we have a similar thread here recently about resurrecting batteries?

-- Leon Sisson

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Sloop Smitten
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1181 Posts

Response Posted - 04/14/2006 : 09:28:32

Bruce,
I believe that falls under negligent homicide rather than murder.

If the battery is not a critical part of your safety equipment I would charge it up and take a measure on it. If it doesn't reach at least 13V I would replace it. If after an hour without using it, it measures less voltage, I would replace it. You could add acid but you should be able to measure specific gravity to do it properly. There is no set rule to determine when to replace a battery on its last legs. Just depends on your willingness to deal with a dead battery. If you do any night sailing, or might get caught out after dark, I would replace it.
Oh, and if you replace it try to pick a brand that brings out a kinder, gentler Bruce.

Edited by - on

JimB517
Past Commodore

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USA
3285 Posts

Response Posted - 04/14/2006 : 12:03:02

Just remember you can never spill acid from a Gel or ACM battery. In fact, it is safe to mount them on their sides. I have 2 55 amp-hour group 24 Gel batteries. Don't ever overcharge these. But you can't spill acid so they are much safer on a sailboat. Gels produce less amp-hours than the equivalent wet cell. My two will power the boat for weeks and weeks of day sailing, and with a couple of solar panels will last forever on a cruise.

I'd say trade in the old battery on a gel or ACM.

Edited by - on

Waterboy
Navigator

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USA
204 Posts

Response Posted - 04/14/2006 : 23:23:39

Didn't we just have a thread on this? But still I can empathize; today rather than the sailboat it was the tractor I was trying to resurrect, and my best effort at educating the young man at the W-superstore left him unconvinced that a hydrometer was a tool for measuring batteries, yet he assured me they could measure mine.

Hrmph.

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Bruce Baker
Captain

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USA
402 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2006 : 15:01:29

So I put the battery out of its misery. I tried taking a quart of weak electrolye out and replacing it with battery acid, but the specific gravity was still unmeasurably different from 1.0. So I priced new marine deep cell 27s. They wanted $99 for one at West Marine and $55 at Walmart. So I gave the Walmart battery a try. Millions of bass fishermen can't be wrong, can they?

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Tom Potter
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1913 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2006 : 15:30:22

Bruce I used Stowaways, (Walmart brand batterys) for years in my old bass boat. They held up very well. Some times you can get them even cheaper at Sams club.

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tinob
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1883 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2006 : 15:39:12

Bruce...I've done it both ways chandleries and Cosco. The expensive ones came in second to the Cosco deep cycle @ 44.00plus core. Four years and running fine.

Val on the herd DAGNABIT # 3936 Patchogue, N.Y.

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dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2006 : 16:07:35

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by tinob
 Val on the herd DAGNABIT # 3936 Patchogue, N.Y.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Val,

How's the flock?

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haley
1st Mate

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USA
59 Posts

Response Posted - 04/24/2006 : 19:45:40

iPod

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