Best Battery for Infrequent Use

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Corvette Owner
AGM batteries are degraded by deep discharge. A battery tender is your best friend for an infrequently driven car.


All Pb-acid batteries are degraded by deep discharge. The cycle life is poor for lead-acid.

Heck, one could say that ALL batteries are degraded by dep discharge. Some types will have longer cycle life before condemnation, but they all will have fewer cycles and less overall Ah throughput than if discharged in a more shallow manner.

And for Pb-acid batteries, sitting at less than 100% SOC will also degrade readily.


So, I am NOT being too OCD by charging/float charging my brand new, daily driven, Odyssey/D.H. Platinum at least once a week?

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: marc1
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
If you are still under the 3/36 warranty the battery will be replaced under the bumper to bumper warranty. If would strongly consider a battery tender type charger if I was parking my Mustang over the winter. The 05+ cars have a fairly high draw when the car is off.


In service date was October 2010 so I missed the warranty. I called Ford to confirm. It is holding a charge right now, I am taking it for a load test shortly. Nevertheless, I think it will be compromised now so I'll get a new one. $155 for the OE 96R. I'll get a true battery tender for next winter, I like these:

http://www.geniuschargers.com/G1100

The 1100 should be fine for over winter maintenance type charging.

Ideally I should move somewhere that I can drive the car year round.


Be careful getting it "Load tested" we were questioning the battery in a 1970 Beetle we just bought and it was a battery from Oreillys. I was passing by an AutoZone and figured I would have it tested. The guy there tested and said it was a bad battery. I took it to Oreillys and they tested it twice and it came back perfect. Of course the other guys want to sell you a battery of their own.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Corvette Owner
AGM batteries are degraded by deep discharge. A battery tender is your best friend for an infrequently driven car.


All Pb-acid batteries are degraded by deep discharge. The cycle life is poor for lead-acid.

Heck, one could say that ALL batteries are degraded by dep discharge. Some types will have longer cycle life before condemnation, but they all will have fewer cycles and less overall Ah throughput than if discharged in a more shallow manner.

And for Pb-acid batteries, sitting at less than 100% SOC will also degrade readily.


Batteries are degraded by discharge the way breathing oxygen leads to death for humans.

Lead-acid batteries in general tolerate many "shallow" discharge cycles better than they do a few very deep discharge cycles. Others, like NiMH and lithium-ion, actually do best if fairly deeply discharged almost every time they are used. For those chemistries, multiple shallow discharges are harmful in the long run.

 

[JHZR2]

Not true. If it were so, we wouldn't be putting nimh and li-ion into HEVs.

Stress and strain due to chemical change and/or intercalation if ions causes degradation, and the more you do it, the worse it is. From a control perspective for some chemistries, shallow can be troublesome because counting coulombs is inaccurate, but there isn't enough slope in the SOC vs V chart to actually identify true state of charge. Then you end up at a higher impedance point and on and on,,,

 

[440Magnum]

I also forgot NiCd- the most notorious for needing to be deep cycled. The so-called "memory" effect is much less evident with NiMH and Li-Ion, but its still there.

Yes, EVERY discharge cycle takes life out of any battery. No disputing that- just like every beat of your heart is one less that it will ever beat. But in very practical terms, you're more likely to abnormally shorten the useful life of a NiCd cell by FAILING to deep-discharge it periodically, and you're more likely to damage a Pb-Acid cell by the very act of deep discharge (although you can also sulfate it by continuously trickle-charging it.) Total discharge of LiIon is also damaging, and virtually all chemistries react poorly to being charged and then left to self-discharge over and over again.

 

[JHZR2]

My comment related back to the statement that mimh and liii on are best deeply discharged, which again is not true and is contrary to how they are used.

EVs like the volt are derated by 50% from the factory. HEVs are kept around 50% soc, and only cycle around 10% of the battery capacity under use. BMS and power electronic topologies aren't sufficiently smart to cycle individual cells or cell groups as you describe to be best.

 

[Boss302fan]

If any car sits longer then 3-4 weeks, it needs to be on a BatteryMinder/Battery Tender... I have used these for years in all my collector cars. You need to keep them on full time when the car is not in use during a storage season.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum

I've got an Enersys (Diehard Platinum) AGM in the '66 which seems to hold its charge great for extended periods. Its been sitting since October or thereabout, and I plan to start it up tomorrow (I'll let yea know!) But that car has only a dozen or so transistors ANYWHERE on it. "Off" means OFF! Which is probably not true of your Shelby or any modern car without a battery disconnect.



I promised a follow-up: the '66 started with no problems after 6 months. Ammeter indicated a moderate charge rate that sustained itself for half an hour after starting it and driving, so I did put it on the trickle charger and ran it all the way up until the charger shut down (overnight) before storing it again. The fire-up was uneventful: Checked under the hood for vermin (none found). Key "on" for 30 seconds to let the Carter electric pump fill the float bowl, pump gas 4 times to set the auto choke and prime the manifold with a little fuel, turn the key... started on the third compression. Love those RB-block engines! I really need to do some front-end work on that car, then drive it a lot more than I have been lately.

 

[dlundblad]

Photos are the car would be much appreciated.