The Battery Guys Blog

A team of researchers at The University of Illinois has developed a new type of battery. The researchers claim it could completely change the way we view power packs for consumer electronics and vehicles. The technology is based around 3-D electrodes that combine to construct microbattereis. This revolutionary concept could see a significant increase in power for the same volume of a significant reduction in the footprint of a battery for the same power. The BBC has a great article and the The Battery Guys recommend that you read the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22191650

Despite us being some few days into the season of spring and the daffodils are manfully trying to explode, the cold weather is still causing havoc with many of our customers’ car batteries.  That dull click or the automatic car door locks failing whilst the car is covered in a shimmer of frost or snow is happening this week all across the country.  We see a massive spike in customer calls and web enquires in these weather windows as batteries refuse to go that extra mile anymore.  What is ironic is that it is generally hot weather, or more specifically high temperatures in the battery that actually cause the eventual failure.
 
There is a vast amount of data available within the scientific and manufacturing community that clearly shows average battery life is far shorter in countries with high temperatures rather than those with more temperate conditions.  This difference in average life is due to overcharging and excessive heat being the main drivers of car battery degradation.  Fluid evaporates in high heat environments and this eventually leads to a breaking down of internal surfaces.  If a voltage regulator has failed and the charging rate is excessive the battery again is exposed to these above optimum temperature ranges and the deformation begins swiftly.
 
Fix it and forget about it.
 
Oh dream on those lovely days of summer!

Many cars these days are fitted with what is called maintenance free batteries because unlike the days of old they do not need checking and topping up with distilled water. Despite this revolution in technology there are simple steps to take to keep the battery in good shape”
 

• The battery top must be clean and free of detritus
• Always keep the top of the battery dry
• Ensure no metallic objects or cabling is loose around the terminals
• Use some Vaseline to coat the connectors
• If corrosion is caused by the spillage of battery fluid then clean up with washing powder or diluted ammonia

 
A fully charged battery will not suffer freezing electrolyte, even in extreme winter conditions.

We always have questions coming into us, generally along the lines of: “I have over 12 Volts reading on the meter for my car battery but it will not start the car and dies quickly?"

This is a simple quandary and basically by the time the car battery Voltage is down to around 12 Volts it is only carrying around 25% of the charge that it would have when new and fully charged.  So, it’s quite simple: a 12 Volt car battery, at 12 Volts of charge needs replacing. 

This little chart below shows the approximate charge as a % of that available compared to Voltage reaming.

100%       12.6 Volts
75%        12.4 Volts
50%        12.2 Volts
25%        12 Volts

I hope this explains one of life’s little oddities.

A breakthrough has been made in the composition of battery electrolyte, which could see a car battery last the life cycle of the vehicle.  This would have major implications for both owners and the battery manufactures.  Check out this New York Times link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/06/12/business/100000001601113/a-possible-battery-breakthrough.html?VI-D-E-OB-AD-TXT-NA-ROS-0912-NA

The main obvious rating for a battery is the Ah (Ampere hours) that is always prominently displayed.  This rating shows how many amps will be supplied over 10 hours so a 70 Ah battery will provide a steady supply of 7A for 10 hours.

A less well used rating is the reserve power and that indicates for how many minutes a battery will deliver 25A at a temp of 25 degrees C.  This gives you an indication of how much cranking power is available for turning the engine over during starting.  This rating is particularly important for cars with diesel engines and sophisticated electronic and security systems that require constant power.  In the UK we use a rating called cold cranking amps (CCA) and the more of these there are then the more grunt is available to deliver power to the engine during stating.  When you turn the key the CCA is what counts and the longer that key is turning then the more CCAs are needed.  You can see that in cold weather or for a big diesel car the CCA rating is very important.

Thebatteryguys.co.uk supply modern batteries that are sealed and maintenance free, there is no need to top up the electrolyte fluid. Most of our batteries that we supply have an indicator on the top, the colours indicate the state of charge of the battery and if it needs to be replaced.

Like most things in life “you get what you pay for”. Don’t skimp on the Ah rating and don’t by a smaller sized battery as car manufacturers use a battery that is the right size for your car.  Don’t forget to look for the warrantee, go for four years just in case there should ever be a manufacturing fault.

Starting, Marine, and Deep-Cycle Batteries – A brief description

•    Starting (often called SLI, for starting, lighting, ignition) batteries are commonly used to start and run engines. Engine starters need a very large starting current for a very short time. Starting batteries have a large number of thin plates for maximum surface area. The plates are composed of a Lead "sponge", similar in appearance to a very fine foam sponge. This gives a very large surface area, but if deep cycled, this sponge will quickly be consumed and fall to the bottom of the cells. Automotive batteries will generally fail after 30-120 deep cycles if deep cycled, while they may last for thousands of cycles in normal starting use (2-5% discharge).

•    Deep cycle batteries are designed to be discharged down as much as 80% time after time, and have much thicker plates at the cost of poor starting current given their amp hour (a/h) rating. The major difference between a true deep cycle battery and others is that the plates are SOLID Lead plates - not sponge. This gives less surface area, thus less "instant" power like starting batteries need. Although these can be cycled down to 20% charge, the best lifespan vs cost method is to keep the average cycle at about 50% discharge. Sometimes called "fork lift", "traction" or "stationary" batteries, are used where power is needed over a longer period of time, and are designed to be "deep cycled", or discharged down as low as 20% of full charge (80% DOD, or Depth of Discharge).  Deep cycle batteries have much thicker plates than automotive batteries.  

•    Marine batteries are usually a "hybrid", and fall between the starting and deep-cycle batteries. In the hybrid, the plates may be composed of Lead sponge, but it is coarser and heavier than that used in starting batteries.

Stanford Robert Ovshinsky, inventor and technologist, has died at the age of 89 from cancer.  Not a common name that trips off the tongue but he was the man who created worked on creating “order for chaos” in science and created the technology  for a way of making nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries used in the first mass produced battery powered cars.

With a somewhat unconventional education and a mass over 400 patents to his name he developed a network of business interest at the same time as stimulating ground breaking research.  The following articles from the BBC and The Guardian are well worth a read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/25/stanford-ovshinsky
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20004190

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/electric-car-battery-maker-a123-systems-files-bankruptcy.html

The link above takes you to a report by Bloomberg on the collapse into administration of the US based Electric Car Battery manufacture A123 Systems Inc. (http://www.a123systems.com/)

On a political level it has exposed the policy of governments picking industrial winners, the company having received around $249M USD in funding stimuli form the Obama administration. On a product level it has shown technical frailties, with product recalls, and marketing weakness with demand not generating the revenues to stave off administration. It looks like assets will pass to Johnson Controls International (JCI), a maker of automotive batteries, amongst other interest, and potentially allow it to dominate this sector in the US. There is a long way to go before demand and technology give the benefits politicians would like to see derived from battery powered cars.  We will keep you posted.

Modern cars have installed in them what are now called “maintenance free batteries” and all that really means is that they no longer need to have their fluid levels monitored or topped up.  It was not so many years ago that most cars had the old style battery that had to have the levels checked.  You might not know but there was also a trick to kick start a failing car battery by the addition of red wine.  Take a look at this YouTube clip in case you ever get caught out with a weak old style battery. I apologise in advance for some of the colourful language that accompanies the use of the wine. Sit back and enjoy.  Cats are included for the additional cosy effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDyGu_FvfKY

My buddy has a VW Golf (other manufacturers are available) that died while on the way home.  The AA determined that a new alternator should be fitted but the battery is still not performing correctly.  After leaving the car for 24 hours on the drive it failed to start this weekend and the battery was flat.

It is highly likely that the battery went completely flat as the proverbial pancake when the alternator failed during driving.  The alternator converts engine energy into electrical energy in order to recharge the battery.  Batteries do not like to be hammered and run down, fully drained. This fully drained state can cause irreversible damage.  When we say that a battery is discharged, often it still has about 1/3 charge remaining and can recover with a gentle overnight charge. Once seriously damaged from discharge a battery cannot usually be recharged either by a mains charger or from the on board alternator.

We have advanced testers, as used by auto electricians, and also advanced chargers that can be used to check and recharge the battery very slowly over a day or two.  This approach might keep you on the road for a while but in all honestly the path of least resistance and probably the best course is to buy a new one.

Here at www.thebatteryguys.co.uk we always try to bring you useful information and we thought that a video might be a useful way to share some knowledge with you.

Having problems starting your car? It may just be a dead battery. Car batteries are a lot easier to replace than you may think. If you need to learn to replace a battery then what better way is there then Julia showing you the step-by-step process. If you have any useful clips that involve the manufacture, performance or novel uses of car batteries then please feel free to contact us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ly0HXNz2EE

As I sit here on holiday, with a faint memory of summers gone where we would sit out enjoying the sun whilst sipping a cool drink and the men burning flesh on the BBQ, I realise we are but days from autumn. I saw the good old BBC weather last night and sure enough they night time temperatures are heading south and in low single figures. Soon we will have that first ground frost and, for many, this will be the time you discover that your car battery is now well passed the sell buy date.

We had a really tough winter the year before last and this will have given the battery a good old caning. As a guide, five years for a good battery is about the average life. Time to consider replacement rather than complacency?

Enjoy the last few sundowners

Don’t wait for failure, check you battery if it is over four years old

Most people think of being stranded on the drive way with the dead click sound or the last throw of the dice with the battery trying to spin the engine before saying “enough is enough” as a cold Winter morning activity.  The high temperatures reached under the bonnet during summer months, on the slow commute into town through traffic or stuck on the motorway in a jam all contribute to weaken your car battery.  High heat in summer is the primary factor in degradation of battery, redundancy capacity and subsequently not having enough grunt to turn the engine over.  This tends to manifest itself in the first September cold snap and frost when the car requires more power than the warmer months due to higher internal frictions and a cold battery produces less immediate charge.

Check it now; especially if it is over four yours old, and remove the potential for a morning of misery come early autumn.

I don’t think that this guy is going to make it big in the comedy scene with his video on how to choose a car battery.  Perhaps it should be posted under irony rather than the comedy section.  I leave you to be the judge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6DOV9xVquw

If only I could find a funny battery clip to blog for you all.

Simon

Following on from the article written by Julian explaining that 8 out of 10 batteries returned under warrantee are fault free it is always good to check that you alternator is working correctly.  The clip below hosted on YouTube is a very clear and simple description of how to test the alternator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arv0hutlz0Y

Any problems, just call the help line

Simon

Many batteries are returned under warranty, which later turn out to not be faulty.  It will surprise you to learn that the figure is a staggering 80%. This is eight out of ten batteries returned are not faulty.

What then is the reason they are returned?  The answer is, they are discharged, and so cannot provide the starting performance to deliver an engine start.  The reasons are many, from a faulty part such as an alternator or starter motor to an electrical component, such as an interior light being left on accidentally.  Even use can cause the battery to discharge.  For example, if the user has a commute that is very short. In cold weather many batteries receive less re-charge from the alternator than is taken to start the car and run all the electrical items such as lights, heater fans, heated rear window, heated seats etc, if the car is used for only short journeys.

A discharged battery is never faulty. In fact, the self-discharge of a modern battery is so low that it can sit on a shelf for eighteen months and still be perfectly serviceable.

Years ago when you switched the engine off, pretty much everything else was also off.  Now it can be sixty minutes, (yes one hour) before a vehicle has finished its system checks, which also are powered by the battery.

Today’s batteries perform an important, if less well-known job of protecting the vehicles systems from voltage spikes which can damage Electronic Control Units and cause many problems.

As many as one in three cars have an under charged battery that will cause sulphation, something which hampers the ability of the battery to accept and retain charge.  It will eventually cause premature battery failure.  

Therefore, if you have a battery that is struggling, you may find charging the battery on a modern battery charger solves the problem.  If you regularly use your car for short journeys a monthly overnight charge would remove any uncertainty and could extend your batteries life by up to two years.

info@thebatteryguys.co.uk or telephone us on 0845 302 3044

Happy motoring

Julian

From 2012, new EU regulations will not only reduce maximum levels of vehicle CO2 emissions across Europe to 130 g/km, but will also increase the demands on vehicle batteries. That’s because meeting this target is going to take more than just improved engine management – innovative battery technologies are absolutely key.   Carmakers have not waited until now to meet these demands, they have been introducing the new technologies for a number of years in anticipation. 

This makes the issue of hybrid technology more relevant than ever before. Car manufacturers use the term hybrid to emphasise the eco-friendly characteristics of their vehicles. There are various types of hybrid technology:  Of these, Start-Stop is set to become the most important. Automatic Start-Stop vehicles are forecast to represent 70% of all vehicles produced in Europe by 2015.  We already have millions of cars on our roads with Start-Stop technology.  VW call their technology Blue Motion while BMW call it Efficient Dynamics, all other producers are building Start-Stop although they do not all have a special label.  The technology they use is essentially the same.

With Start-Stop vehicles, the engine is switched off during short stops – for instance at traffic lights – in order to save fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 5 to 10%.  But that is not all. Providing the batteries state of charge is sufficient, the alternator (this is what charges the battery) is also switched off. This means that the battery is now powering all electrical functions including braking, steering, climate control, safety systems, lights, entertainment to name a few.

Vehicles with automatic Start-Stop technology require specific Start-Stop batteries. The wrong battery not only impairs the Start-Stop function with environmental consequences, including an increase in fuel consumption of around 12%, but also reduces the service life of the battery itself dramatically. Tests have shown that conventional flooded batteries lose between 7 and 16% of their available capacity after just one week of being used in a Start-Stop vehicle.  This means fitting the wrong battery could result in that battery failing (or being worn out) in two months.

You can identify the battery technology fitted to your car by looking for the following words on its label, VRLA or AGM or both or EFB.  Also, as a rule of thumb, if your car is Stop-Start, you have one of these batteries and must use a similar battery at replacement time.

The Battery Guys are ready for this change, already stocking and supplying these revolutionary batteries to their customers. Should you wish to know more, or are unsure about what battery to order, contact us by email on info@thebatteryguys.co.uk or telephone us on 0845 302 3044

Happy motoring

Julian

We have just endured one of the coldest winters on record.  As with many car components, batteries do not perform at their best when cold.  In fact, at zero, a battery can only provide 65% of the cold start performance it can provide at + 15c.  If the battery is old and tired, and or not fully charged, then the performance drop is even greater. This is why batteries fail in cold conditions.

The weather also highlights how car batteries will have a much tougher time in the future, unless the correct technology is used when replacing a battery. Micro-hybrid technologies (such as stop-start, brake energy regeneration and alternator passive boost) is having a profound effect on the battery market.

It is expected that by 2015 65% of all new cars sold will be stop start.  In a micro-hybrid system, the battery moves from its traditional role as a starter battery to an integral part of the vehicle.  It needs to maintain all the electrical systems in the car when it is switched off, while coping with intermittent charging and deep cycling.

As ever, never choose a battery on price, first ensure the replacement battery is of the same technology and specification as the original, then consider price.

Just click on the link below or paste it into your browser to see a great short film on how a car battery works- great education!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TriS8_X6cTc