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Tractor Talk Discussion Forum

Battery life reduced by trickle charger?

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Dom88 88

03-01-2007 13:40:23




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I have just bought a trickle charger to top up my tractor batteries over winter,as i have had to replace all my batteries (10!) this year. My neighbour swears that this won`t work and will actually shorten battery life.

Is he right? I reckon that the batteries sulfated, and i thought that the way to stop this is to ensure that they are always fully charged.

Any advice on battery maintenace would be appreciated.

Dom.

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flying belgian

03-02-2007 05:21:08




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
When my mother had the equip. auction of my dads farm equip. the auctioner came to give us some pointers for auction day. He said take all batteries out of everything and throw them away. Then go down to supply store and buy new and install in everything. I told him some of the batteries are only about 1 year old. He said no matter, we want to make sure everything starts on auction day. and they will be started and stoped many many times morning of. You will spend 50 to 100 dollars for a battery and I will get you 1000 to 5000 dollars more if it starts verses not starting. I followed his advice and we had a very succesful auction. This was 15 years ago. Ever since then anytime a battery starts to weeken I replace it right away. If a typical $60 battery lasts 4 yrs. thats $15 a yr. or $1.25 a month. With what my time is worth I can't screw around very long just to get a few extra months out of battery. Just my opinion.

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NEsota

03-01-2007 19:26:40




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
Will go out on a limb here and perhaps provoke some discussion. My thoughts are that the diodes in an alternator may draw 100 MA (milliamps) or more, therefore when storing equipment for an extended period disconnect alternator from battery. For a fully charged battery a one amp continuous charge is too much. 50 to 200 amps is the range that would be sufficient. The numbers used here are based more on my reasoning than on my experience.

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tdavid young

03-01-2007 18:31:25




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
showtab, please tell me more about your solar battery charger. where to buy, price, brand name,model you bought, type of prevaling weather in your area. this would be very helpful to me. thanks.



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Gary Schafer

03-01-2007 18:28:26




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
Yes a trickle charger will kill your batteries! As others have said what you want is a battery maintainer or float charger.

The best deal going are the little float chargers from harbor freight. They are at around $6.95 right now. The prices vary from around $4.50 to $12.00 depending on their sales. They put out a regulated voltage of 13.6 volts which is the voltage needed for float charging. (13.3-13.6 volts is the float range batteries require). I have heard a few people complain about these chargers saying that they have melted down. The trick to using them is that you MUST have a fully charged battery when you connect these float chargers up. They will not put out enough power to charge a low battery and they WILL get very hot if you try to do so. Charge the battery with a regular charger first then hook up the float charger and you can leave it on for years at a time and it will keep the battery up and will not harm the battery or the float charger.

If you are going to store a battery for long periods (over the winter) with no float charger then be sure to clean the battery top well before leaving it. Any acid residue or dirt on the battery top will make a conductive path between the battery posts and it will discharge the battery. Best to wash the top with backing soda and water. Don’t get any backing soda into the cells or it will kill the battery.

Disconnecting one lead from the battery is a must on most cars as the electronics in most draw enough current to discharge the battery in 3 or 4 months. On a tractor you should not have that problem and usually don’t have to worry about disconnecting them.
However it is not a bad idea to disconnect one cable in case there is some leakage in the wiring. Another good reason to disconnect one lead is to help prevent fires! Some of these old tractors have some pretty bad, poorly maintained wiring that sometimes develops a short and starts a fire. A friend of mine that works on customers tractors says he always disconnects a battery cable when he gets a tractor in his shop as he has had a couple catch on fire because of poor wiring.

Best regards
Gary

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dan hill

03-02-2007 02:19:42




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Gary Schafer, 03-01-2007 18:28:26  
A 7.00 charger can burn up a tractor or a 20 grand antique car.Battery chargers should be watched.After you have seen flames coming out the top of a charger you will beleive it.A lightning strike on your power line can short a diode in your charger and start the transformer burning.Some chargers have a thermal fuse in the transformer windings, most do not.Lightning is active 12 months of the year.

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Rod in Smiths Falls, ON,

03-01-2007 18:27:37




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
Battery failures seem to travel in bunches. Two years ago I had to replace 11 batteries between spring and summer. This year none failed.

A few years ago a friend got me a battery tender, an electronic 1 amp battery charger. It did a great job on my cabin cruiser all summer, then destroyed the deep cells in my friend's fishing boat over the winter. All was fine until one day I walked by and smelled sulfur wafting out under the tarp.

The little chargers work well until they don't.

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gene bender

03-01-2007 17:31:25




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
Just disconnect the ground and the batt will be ok in the spring by unhooking you eleminate the leakage if any and it will be fine come spring i keep my terminals clean and full of water and never have any problems get 7 or so yrs out of the batts



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Aaron Ford

03-01-2007 17:07:46




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
I bought a Schumacher Battery Companion. It is a 1.5 amp slow charge model. It is labelled as a fully automatic battery charger/maintainer with float-mode monitoring. It cost me 17 bucks at Walmart. It charged a run-down battery overnight and has been maintaining the battery ever since. There has been no heat buildup or boiling sounds. Just a quiet hum. It also comes with a second lead that you permanently connect to the battery post or any 12v+ and has a handy rubberized quick disconnect. This is in case you think the alligator clips are going to fall off or cannot easily access battery. I will install the permanent pigtail on my tractor when I get the dash installed. This way I can just plug it in and forget it. HTH

Aaron

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dan hill

03-02-2007 02:39:46




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Aaron Ford, 03-01-2007 17:07:46  
Dont forget it...I have found that the new chargers that shut off automatically are crap.A friend bought one after his charger smoked.He felt that it didnt give his battery a full charge.I tried it on my sawmill battery.It shut down after 3 hours.My hydrometer said the battery was at 1/2 charge.It took a regular charger 6 hours to get the battery fully charged.



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ken in texas

03-01-2007 16:45:06




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
Have seen batteries bought new and put on trickle charge to keep them fresh and later found them to be totally dry of acid and ruined. Should only be charged a short time before testing. (from an old battery man)



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glennster

03-01-2007 13:44:33




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dom88 88, 03-01-2007 13:40:23  
trickle charger will ruin the battery if left on over an extended time. you can use a float charger, like the battery tender charger, they can be left on for years without damaging a battery.



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Acadianbob

03-01-2007 14:19:09




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to glennster, 03-01-2007 13:44:33  
Yes, a battery tender is the way to go. I use several; on motorcycles, travel trailers, etc. They do a great job of keeping batteries fully charged. They also de-sulphate the batteries making them last much longer when infrequently used.



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showcrop

03-01-2007 14:52:02




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Acadianbob, 03-01-2007 14:19:09  
last winter I got a solar battery maintainer. I was so happy with it that I just got three more



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Dick

03-01-2007 18:30:30




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to showcrop, 03-01-2007 14:52:02  
Where did you buy your solar battery maintainers? I know Harbor Tools sells a couple different models but haven't heard nothing about them. Please let us know what kind you've had such good luck with

Thanks,
Dick



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James22

03-01-2007 18:57:59




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to Dick, 03-01-2007 18:30:30  
I bought the larger solar charger from Harbor Freight and used it last winter on truck which was stored in a shed with one end open to the south. Installed the charger around middle of November and during the process checked it's output voltage with a VOM. Around noon with no clouds, the output voltage was 18.6 volts, which would significantly decrease with any clouds. It appeared enough sun would hit the panel to start charging 10:00 AM and stop around 3:00 PM. I decided to give it a try. Don't know what happened when the sun's angle decreased further until Dec 21, but came back in March and it started fine. I would be concerned with over charging if using the larger one in more direct sunlight, particularly during the summer. I would be sure to position it using a VOM meter.

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Ken Macfarlane

03-02-2007 05:10:32




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 Re: Battery life reduced by trickle charger? in reply to James22, 03-01-2007 18:57:59  
I ruined a lot of batteries letting them sit over winter, now I make sure they are swapped into something used over the winter or brought within reach of the charge so they can get a hit of juice once a month or so in the winter.

I'd like to try some gell cells but people tell me the quality of them has been declining in the last 10 years along with the prices.



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