Completely flat (1 Viewer)

[highwayman]

Hi Folks
Got a new leisure battery, and somehow turned the charger off in the van oh:
We ended up with a completely flat battery that wouldn't even iluminate a light let along move the needle on the battery gauge.
Now the thing-is it charged up ok and has held a charge all winter albeit not to the top of the gauge, but should i trust-it or not??
I'm leaning towards not, but at less than a year old and a cost of £100 i don't want to throw it away. Dunno what to do so i thought i'd ask the experts.
Another thing, to connect another battery and double our capacity it's positive to positive and negative to negative isn't-it??

cheers nige

 

[darklord]

You are correct in the pos to pos etc bit. You need to test the battery, if you connect a duff one to a good one, you;ll not really gain anything and could cause problems. Did the battery have a warranty? if so, it was probably two years........? Halfords will do a drop test on if for you, or you could do a simple test by turning stuff on and seeing how long it lasts....good luck.

 

[pappajohn]

if its still holding charge it sounds like you may be Ok.



you could do a load test with a known load to be sure using something like a 50watt car spotlight bulb and a digital voltage meter.
a regular charger wont fully charge the battery but it will be close enough to test.

let the battery stand 'off charge' for a couple of hours.

connect the meter to the battery and check voltage (should be 12.6v/12.7v), then connect the bulb as well.

check the meter regularly.

a 50w load should bring a 110ah battery voltage down to 12v (50% charge) in around 13 hours.

if the battery is knackered the time will be greatly reduced.

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