Lead Acid Batteries - leaving them partially discharged?

[B27]

I'm aware that I'm making more demands on the house battery, with a fridge and a chinaspacher heater.
The battery which came with the boat owes me nothing, I don't mind replacing it, but I want to get a decent life out of the replacement.
I can get a like-for-like Hankook for £85, not that I have any brand loyalty or anything.
So if I get three years of good service, without needing excessive engine running or buying lots of solar panels, that's under £30 a year.
Stringing out its life to 6 or ten years doesn't save very much.

For a lot of people there might be a balance, if you have a bigger bank of batteries, they will last longer for the same use, but do you really save any money, and how useful is the extra capacity?
Maybe a few times a year it might be nice to run the fridge at anchor for extra days, or use the heater on the mooring, but I don't think I actually need many Ah.

This autumn, if I find I'm struggling to keep the battery charged due to running lights and heater on the mooring and not getting much solar charge, I might look at a small portable lithium pack, which I could take home to charge. I've not looked into that yet, but £100 might cover a useful number of Ah in cells, maybe enough to power fridge, heater and a few lights for a couple of nights away.

In October, my mooring probably only gets a potential 3 hours useful sun per day, even on a clear bright day. A wet week won't yield many Ah however many panels I buy.
Of course every outing ends with at least 30 minutes of engine running, I have a good alternator, so I guess that's good for a few Ah.

 

[saxonpirate]

Lots been said, so I won't add the same.. only to say this.

Running two cheap electronic (intelligent) Lidl battery chargers 24/7 on my 220ah domestic and 75ah starter lead acid batteries.. resulted in 13 years life.. mainly liveaboard. Only early this year did I replace them, and even then they weren't completely useless..

 

[Refueler]

Lots been said, so I won't add the same.. only to say this.

Running two cheap electronic (intelligent) Lidl battery chargers 24/7 on my 220ah domestic and 75ah starter lead acid batteries.. resulted in 13 years life.. mainly liveaboard. Only early this year did I replace them, and even then they weren't completely useless..

After draining down my house bank other day .. I decided that my trickle maintainers (great for when boat is storage) were not quite man enough when boat is in use.
So I picked up a couple of Lidl chargers ... I'd looked at them before and dismissed them ... but decided to look again ... and found they DO have charge restart capability.
18 euros a piece .... and doing a grand job on board. Box says 8 modes (!) ... actually comes down to Bulk Charge ... then absorption charge ... then monitoring to restart charge if battery level falls .... with LCD display and user settable modes.

There was a choice of 10A or 5A models .... I chose the 5A as boat stays connected to shore when moored + there is solar .....

ULDG 5.0 D2 model.

(He says 2m long cables ??? No they are just over 1m length each 0 but still nice and long).

Having proven their worth - will now look at wiring them into system instead of the croc clips at present.

No doubt the nay sayers will chime in and poo poo such units ..... but for simple charge setup ... why not ???

 

[Refueler]

Oh ... I forgot to add ... I do not consider leaving LA batterys partially discharged as good idea. In winter here - we drop to -30C at times and if battery is not fully charged - such temps can seriously damage the battery. I had one battery drain down to low level one winter and the liquid froze in the battery due to its lack of acid - splitting the case .....
The acid in the liquid significantly lowers the freezing point of the liquid - plus having a trickle charge - keeps temp up ...

 

[B27]

Aldi and Lidl have sold variations of 'smart battery charger' over the years.
The one I have seems to do some odd things when the battery is fully charged.
Like put in a fixed current which can drive the volts up a long way on a small battery.
No way would I leave any charger connected long term if I didn't know exactly what it was doing.

 

[Refueler]

Aldi and Lidl have sold variations of 'smart battery charger' over the years.
The one I have seems to do some odd things when the battery is fully charged.
Like put in a fixed current which can drive the volts up a long way on a small battery.
No way would I leave any charger connected long term if I didn't know exactly what it was doing.

Fair comment ....

My pals Ctek was worst I have ever seen .... so brand / price is no g'tee.

 

[saxonpirate]

Aldi and Lidl have sold variations of 'smart battery charger' over the years.
The one I have seems to do some odd things when the battery is fully charged.
Like put in a fixed current which can drive the volts up a long way on a small battery.
No way would I leave any charger connected long term if I didn't know exactly what it was doing.

We can obviously only put across our own personal experiences of different pieces of equipment. I own four Lidl chargers.. two in use permanently on the boat, one in my workshop, and one that I keep in my car and gets occasional use as and when. I can honestly say that I've never had a problem with them. The only niggle I have is if the power goes off they need to be reset.. apart from that I couldn't be happier..

 

[colind3782]

Re. the Lidl Ultimate Speed chargers I see there are different models available, i.e. A1 through D1. Is the D1 better/later than the A1? Which model would be the best to buy?

 

[B27]

Re. the Lidl Ultimate Speed chargers I see there are different models available, i.e. A1 through D1. Is the D1 better/later than the A1? Which model would be the best to buy?

If you are going to be particular about details, you should probably pay real money for a Victron or similar where you have properly specified charge parameters which you can adjust.
If you just want a charger which will deal with a low battery and you're not going to leave it unsupervised for a long time, the Aldi and Lidl ones are very serviceable and good value. Which of the variants is 'better' who knows?

You don't want to come back after a couple of weeks and find your battery is flat because the mains went off or fizzing because the charger is not intended for long term maintenance. The money you save on a charger won't replace even a small cheap battery.

 

[Refueler]

If you are going to be particular about details, you should probably pay real money for a Victron or similar where you have properly specified charge parameters which you can adjust.
If you just want a charger which will deal with a low battery and you're not going to leave it unsupervised for a long time, the Aldi and Lidl ones are very serviceable and good value. Which of the variants is 'better' who knows?

You don't want to come back after a couple of weeks and find your battery is flat because the mains went off or fizzing because the charger is not intended for long term maintenance. The money you save on a charger won't replace even a small cheap battery.

I am now going to throw 'cat amongst the pigeons' .............

I would suggest that are more boaters out there using common car battery chargers to maintain their modest batterys than there are 'marine solutions' as so often put forward on forums such as this.

Not every boat is over xxft .... with all the kit and kaboodle additions requiring serious A/hrs ...

Modest boats have been sitting alongside pontoons in clubs / marinas with simple chargers for as long as mains electric has been available ..... how often do you read of their failure ???

How often do people post that they have xx A/hr start battery and a single xx A/hr domestic .... and looking to improve. Up come the live-aboards / long distance cruisers who need substantial setups ... apparently ignoring the fact that the OP by describing his present setup has shown he's not in that category - his needs are modest and far less ....

Flak Jacket still on.

 

[B27]

Absolutely, there are loads of people using not-very-smart chargers, it doesn't tend to matter, because they are exercising a bit of manual control and monitoring. Or there is enough load on the system to keep things happy.

There are plenty of people about who've destroyed batteries by leaving cheap chargers connected though.
In other circumstances, cheap chargers don't always fully charge the battery.
These things can also be true of maladjusted expensive chargers of course!

Lots of motorbike owners who want to keep their batteries topped up all winter have found it's not actually trivial.

 

[noelex]

Better battery chargers have more sophisticated and user adjustable parameters. This helps extend battery life (providing you take advantage of these features). This does not mean that more expensive chargers are always the most cost effective solution, but the effect on the battery lifespan should be taken into account when deciding which charger to purchase.

 

[Refueler]

Absolutely, there are loads of people using not-very-smart chargers, it doesn't tend to matter, because they are exercising a bit of manual control and monitoring. Or there is enough load on the system to keep things happy.

There are plenty of people about who've destroyed batteries by leaving cheap chargers connected though.
In other circumstances, cheap chargers don't always fully charge the battery.
These things can also be true of maladjusted expensive chargers of course!

Lots of motorbike owners who want to keep their batteries topped up all winter have found it's not actually trivial.

Majority of chargers do not 100% charge .... they are designed that way.

To actually achieve true 100% is an indefinite exercise unless you use a charger that is forced to ignore the near full state of battery - in so doing actually shortening its life. Even chargers promoted by people on these forums do not hit 100% - but get as close to 100% as is safe.

The trick to longevity of battery is in the case of Lead Acid - keep it charged up ...

I have often suggested breakers yard 2nd hand batterys .... cheap ... yard tested before selling ... I used such in UK and when available over here ... with some lasting over 7yrs ... average over 5yrs ...
Its staying discharged that destroys them.

 

[colind3782]

If you are going to be particular about details, you should probably pay real money for a Victron or similar where you have properly specified charge parameters which you can adjust.
If you just want a charger which will deal with a low battery and you're not going to leave it unsupervised for a long time, the Aldi and Lidl ones are very serviceable and good value. Which of the variants is 'better' who knows?

You don't want to come back after a couple of weeks and find your battery is flat because the mains went off or fizzing because the charger is not intended for long term maintenance. The money you save on a charger won't replace even a small cheap battery.

I have bought a Victron but that wasn't the question I asked.

 

[B27]

I have bought a Victron but that wasn't the question I asked.

I suspect you've answered your own question, it's a mystery what the differences are between variants, so you don't know what you're getting if details matter.
Assuming the A to D variants are not different mains plugs or similar?