New Batteries Delivered To Home - What Should I Do (Yes, I Will RTFM)

[Deleted member 36384]

Hello On This Windy Day,

I have ordered up four new Trojan T105s and will probably receive them the day after tomorrow. What do you think I should do when they are at home to ensure the life is optimised? They will not be fitted into the boat until end of the month but may have to stay in the garage until April due to work commitments and progress.

1. I don't have a decent battery charger at home so will need to purchase one, any ideas, for home use only?
2. Should they be charged individually at 6V or would it be better to wire them in series and charge them at 24V as they will be fitted on the boat?
3. At 225 ah each what size of battery charger would I need? I realise that the capacity stays the same in series.
4. I am told that they will come fully charged and ready to go with acid in them.
5. The vendor recommends a charger with an output rated at 10% of amp hour, so 22.5A. Considering that many on here have challenged vendors advice before (salesmen v technical knowledgable person) I would like to clarify this because from what I can see the output is very high and the charger very big at 22A! I am just looking for a charger that can be used to keep them topped up at home.
6. Should they be stored in a warm place or is my cold but dry outhouse OK?

Thanks,

BlowingOldBoots

 

[lw395]

If they are arriving fully charged, all you need is a float charger of around 27V and something under an amp.
Or put them in two pairs and use a 12V (i.e. 13.5V) float charger. They should be fine if each pair is float charged say one day a week, as we are talking new batteries with low self-discharge.
If you don't have a decent float charger, I would suggest just charging for a short period once a week or something, an hour or two with a low tech charger should do no harm.

It's quite different if you intend to discharge them at home though!

 

[pvb]

They won't need much attention if you're only storing them for a couple of months. You could put a charger on them every now and again, but you won't need one delivering 10% of the C20 rating - Trojan suggest 3-5% of C20.

You can download the battery user guide from the Trojan website.

Storing in your outhouse would be preferred, unless it freezes, in which case they would be better indoors (although fully charged batteries shouldn't freeze easily).

Ignore any comments about not storing them on a concrete floor!

 

[Richard10002]

If the voltages are 6. 3v/6.4v per battery, I would probably do no more than check the voltage weekly. If it were to fall significantly, you might need to do something,.

 

[Mistroma]

Similar situation when I bought new T105s.

1) Checked date of manufacture via codes on casing (I'll see if I can find notes on decoding to get date)
2) Checked Specific Gravity (temp. compensated) to get initial state of charge (Trojan publish a graph)
3) Left on full charge until Specific Gravity stabilised (gives a useful reference for 100% in future)
4) Left on float charge afterwards

T105s have quite a high self-discharge rate or around 4% per week at 25C. That's a max. figure and obviously reduces at lower temperatures. However, it means you can work on replacing about 0.6% of capacity per day.

Trojan quote a float charge of 1%-3% of capacity.
2.2A - 6.8A for 2x225Ah at 12V
4.5A - 13.5A for 4x225Ah at 12V

I'd buy a charger based on likely future use at home. If you would find a car charger useful then 12V might be the way to go. If you just want to keep T105s topped up until they are on the boat then I'd be tempted to charge them in pairs for a week each. Once Specific Gravity stabilises, you could connect them all together and just leave on float. This would allow you to use a smaller 5A charger rather than 10A or above and still guarantee you were starting off with batteries at 100%.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Thanks everyone for the useful advice.

 

[Mistroma]

I meant to add that I started out measuring Specific Gravity (SG) with a hydrometer from Halfords. However, it isn't easy to read on the boat and needs temperature compensation. I found a much better German design and tracked down an eBay seller. They still seem to be in stock so would say it is worth paying £10.47 to have one delivered instead of getting the slightly cheaper Halfords variety.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262132443393

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I meant to add that I started out measuring Specific Gravity (SG) with a hydrometer from Halfords. However, it isn't easy to read on the boat and needs temperature compensation. I found a much better German design and tracked down an eBay seller. They still seem to be in stock so would say it is worth paying £10.47 to have one delivered instead of getting the slightly cheaper Halfords variety.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262132443393

I had actually just ordered this very item before coming back to the forum and reading your post. I remember reading here that this was a good product, so bought it.

 

[Len Ingalls]

Fully charged batteries don't freeze-at least down to -40C
My boat batteries stay in my boat,parked beside my house,each winter-temps to -25C -from Nov-Apr.
I charge them fully in fall & disconnect one terminal. They are still fully charged in spring.
One winter I left them on float. In spring,they needed water,so I stopped it.
They are not Trojans-just run of the mill deep cycle house & regular start battery-flooded cell type.
If you store batteries off the boat,place them on a non-conductive dry surface-wood,etc.

Cheers/ Len

 

[sarabande]

I'd agree to charging them in series pairs, as they will be working like that anyway. Local garage will make up the connectors. The advantage is that you can easily buy decent chargers at 12v for big capacities; 6v chargers tend to be expensive bcs of amperage.

I have a couple of Ctek, one on board, and one on t' farm, and they have a decent charger here

http://ctek.com/gb/en/chargers/12v

The MX10 will charge anything that you use, and has umpteen programs for all types of batteries.

If you are storing them for a short while, no charging needed. If the floor is concrete, then store them on a piece of wood to reduce any chance of local chilling, which they don't like.

 

[macd]

BoB: this is the date code breaker, from the Trojan website:
How do you read the date codes on the batteries?
Positive Terminal- Manufacturing Date. This code indicates the actual date when mechanical assembly of the battery was completed. At this point, electrolyte has not been added to the battery and formation charging has not taken place. LETTER stands for the month and could be anything from A to L (A=January, B=February, C=March, and so on),; NUMBER stands for the date.
Negative Terminal- Shipping Date. This code indicates the month and year when the battery was shipped out of our factory. LETTER stands for the month (see below); NUMBER is the last digit of the year.

Example: A battery with "I26" stamped on the positive terminal and "J2" on the negative. "I26" means that the battery was assembled, without electrolyte, on September 26th. "J2" means that it was shipped from our factory around October of 2002.

Incidentally, ref pvb's post #3, the same Trojan Q&A page has this to say:
[Myth]: "Storing a battery on concrete will discharge it quicker"
Long ago, when battery cases were made out of natural rubber, this was true. Now, however, battery cases are made of polypropylene or other modern materials that allow a battery to be stored anywhere. A battery's rate of discharge is affected by its construction, its age, and the ambient temperature. The main issue with storing on concrete is that if the battery leaks, the concrete will be damaged.

Good advice in the posts above. They'll come to no harm left to their own devices, but I'd be inclined to check them every few weeks...apart from anything else, it's a good habit to get into. On the other hand, Mistroma's advice for determining SG at full charge is sensible. Trojan caution, however, that it takes quite a few cycles for the T105 to develop its true full capacity. Do buy a hydrometer if you don't have one already: the only way to ascertain the true state of charge....duh, just noticed your post #8.

 

[Mistroma]

Yes, I seem to remember Trojan estimating around 50 cycles before full capacity is reached. However, it is still worth charging until SG to stabilises to get an initial figure.

I see some people saying not to bother charging and that they have normal deep cycle batteries (i.e. leisure). T105s are a completely different beast and do lose charge much more rapidly than leisure batteries.

My batteries were from Tayna in 2012 and were delivered promptly with codes showing that they had been made in US only a few months earlier. I have not needed any equalization charges yet as SG in all cells are still almost identical.

 

[TQA]

As others have said just check the voltage, which should be 6.3 or better then leave them alone.

You could charge them fully before fitting using almost any 12 volt charger capable of at least 5 amps. Just wire two Trojans up in series at a a time. But if the boat has a good charger I would not bother, wait till they are fitted.

BTW I run 6 Trojans in my house bank and they do the business! But two of the six in the current bank failed after 13 months both with one dead cell. Anybody fancy my chances on a warranty claim? Bought in Florida ans shipped to Grenada, fitted by me and it was in Martinique that I removed them and returned them to the local Trojan supplier for testing and confirmation of the failure. Despite many emails including one which confirmed they were within the warranty period I have heard nothing further.

 

[Mistroma]

As others have said just check the voltage, which should be 6.3 or better then leave them alone.

You could charge them fully before fitting using almost any 12 volt charger capable of at least 5 amps. Just wire two Trojans up in series at a a time. But if the boat has a good charger I would not bother, wait till they are fitted.

BTW I run 6 Trojans in my house bank and they do the business! But two of the six in the current bank failed after 13 months both with one dead cell. Anybody fancy my chances on a warranty claim? Bought in Florida ans shipped to Grenada, fitted by me and it was in Martinique that I removed them and returned them to the local Trojan supplier for testing and confirmation of the failure. Despite many emails including one which confirmed they were within the warranty period I have heard nothing further.

T105s have quite a high self-discharge rate of around 4% per week at 25C and it sounds as if OP will have them lying around for 9-10 weeks. That would be 40% loss over that period. Of course it's the UK and the temp. is going to be much lower and discharge rate will be a lot slower. I don't have discharge rates for 5-10C but imagine it could still drop by 15%. I would personally prefer get them topped up and then float charged at least 50% of the time.

Of course anything you do (or don't do) to batteries shortens their service life.

Sounds as if you have been unlucky with your T105s, I guess that there must be the odd dud but they do have a good reputation. One reason I avoided expensive AGMs was the higher financial risk as guarantees were likely to be useless. I've heard lots of people state that suppliers usually want the batteries returned at great expense so not worth having a guarantee. However, it sounds as if your warranty claim is with Trojan and not the supplier. So fingers crossed and I hope that they do prove to be helpful.

 

[Richard10002]

The Op said "they will not be fitted to the boat until the end of the month", which sounds like 4 weeks to me?

 

[macd]

The Op said "they will not be fitted to the boat until the end of the month", which sounds like 4 weeks to me?

...to which he added "...but may have to stay in the garage until April due to work commitments and progress", which is where Mistroma's "9 or 10" weeks came from.

 

[BERT T]

I had actually just ordered this very item before coming back to the forum and reading your post. I remember reading here that this was a good product, so bought it.

Pay attention to this:
Note: Manufacturer recommends flushing out with clean fresh water after use to remove acid residue. Failure to remove acid residue after use may result in the RED / GREEN display segments becoming bleached or faded during storage / between uses.

 

[Mistroma]

Pay attention to this:
Note: Manufacturer recommends flushing out with clean fresh water after use to remove acid residue. Failure to remove acid residue after use may result in the RED / GREEN display segments becoming bleached or faded during storage / between uses.

I had not spotted this in the instructions so well worth pointing out. I always rinse out hydrometers and allow to dry before storage so won't affect my own use of this item. Force of habit from my days as a chemist, rinse out all kit and then allow to dry. Average user might not be so careful.

N.B. Air dry, not wipe dry with a cloth, something chemists used to avoid. It was to meant to avoid cross-contamination (but actually meant you could go for a coffee as glassware was drying ).

 

[macd]

I meant to add that I started out measuring Specific Gravity (SG) with a hydrometer from Halfords. However, it isn't easy to read on the boat and needs temperature compensation. I found a much better German design and tracked down an eBay seller. They still seem to be in stock so would say it is worth paying £10.47 to have one delivered instead of getting the slightly cheaper Halfords variety.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262132443393

Bought one on your recommendation, Mistroma. It arrived today and it's brilliant.
Many thanks for the good steer.