The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: welsh_cob on April 05, 2015, 08:53:06 am
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Hi,
I have two 12v battery units I use alternately to power the electric fencing for horses. It usually runs the perimeter of an acre to acre and a half and I alternate them, usually recharging the spare battery ready to be plugged up when the other starts to run out. Neither of them are recharging properly, the low battery light comes on the energiser as soon as they are hooked up, even after a 'supposed' full charge :thinking: is there any way of reviving the batteries or are they now duds??
Many thanks.
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How old are the batteries?
What about your charger? What age/condition is it?
I suspect after many recharges the batteries may now dud.
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We have exactly the same problem. Our batteries are nearly 3 years old :(
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Sounds like their dead , normal ? or leisure battery , I have 7yr old leisure batterys but I try to never let them loose all their charge before recharging
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presuming they are the car battery type?
sorry if I'm stating the obvious but you've checked water level?
I've been told you can get something to reboost(?) the acid but that's as much as I was told.
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Many thanks for your replies.
They're both car batteries, once a new one went in the car I would tend to charge them up and use for the fence. Since taking them out of the cars they're both getting on for 5-6 years old and had many 'recharges'.
sorry if I'm stating the obvious but you've checked water level?
I've been told you can get something to reboost(?) the acid but that's as much as I was told.
::) ...no....I'll look into that and see if I can revive them :fc:
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The fact that they're the old ones out of your car suggests they weren't much good in the first place! Why would you replace a battery that there was nothing wrong with?
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True hughesy, at the time there was enough charge to power the energiser and has been after several recharges but they've given up. So did I! Took them to the recycling plant this morning and on the off chance had a look what other batteries were there - someone kindly left me a Renault battery that's powering the fence nicely for the time being!
Thanks everyone for your replies :thumbsup: think I'll invest in a new battery and a solar kit.
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The problem may be your fence energiser unit. They should stop working when the battery reaches 40% charge and no lower otherwise a deeper discharge will damage the battery, a condition from which it won't recover. We have a Rutland unit and the leisure battery has been going for 5 years.
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Hi,
I have two 12v battery units I use alternately to power the electric fencing for horses. It usually runs the perimeter of an acre to acre and a half and I alternate them, usually recharging the spare battery ready to be plugged up when the other starts to run out. Neither of them are recharging properly, the low battery light comes on the energiser as soon as they are hooked up, even after a 'supposed' full charge :thinking: is there any way of reviving the batteries or are they now duds??
Many thanks.
Every time you charge and discharge a lead acid battery a fine " glaze " of sulphate of lead forms on the battery plates ( think it may be the positive plates )
over sixty or so cycles this sulphate coating builds up causes resistance to charging.
till you get the situation you now have . Many many folk will throw the battery away , garages , mechanic's electricians & electronic engineers will tell you to buy a new battery .
How ever good news there is a new type of battery trickle charger that over comes this long term sulphation it uses short high frequency bursts of a voltage that is fractionally higher than the discharged battery and over 24 hours of so can actually bring up a supposedly dead battery till it is infact more effective 7 efficient than a brand new battery
They are some times known as gold buggy battery chargers .. But the best ones I know of are called de sulphation battery chargers.
Mine cost me £24 ish for one able to revitalize a 100 Ah heavy duty cycle caravan battery . If you go this troute make sure that the one you choose covers the sized of your batteries amphere hour capacity getting too small a one does not usually give as good results as the correct sized one.
my caravan ledger battery became discharged to 1.4 volts .
so you can imagine what has been said to me when I was seeking the de sulphation type charger locally .
After 8 days it has now recovered to 2.5 volts when disconnected for 5 minutes .. Ok for me this will be a long slow job of say a month or so but it will save me something like £90 if it works out well .
Look them up on eBay and please do read up on this type of charger on Wikki etc . ..the more folk that know of them the better the outcomes will be .
Please note .....that this type of charger is not one of the usual electronic sampling battery chargers found in the likes of Halfords for £60 or so