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Is my battery kaput?


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I've had this Halfords leisure battery for nearly three years now, originally used when I had a small portable setup, AZGTi, CEM25P etc. For the last 2 years or so it has been in storage and I'll admit I haven't kept up with maintenance like charging etc. Since getting a full ZWO portable setup before Christmas it has been dragged out of the shed, thrown in a Bison box and whacked on charge. Great! However, on Friday night when I went to pack up at 1am, it was displaying 9v! Luckily I had captured all my intended images so no harm done, put battery back on the smart charger and it was full again for last night's session. It will charge up to around 90% and 13v on the meter and after 5 or 6 hours use it will be around 60% and 12v. Its a 70ah battery. The picture below shows its current state this morning. 

20230122_123045.jpg

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Assuming it's a standard lead-acid battery, I'm afraid they don't take kindly to neglect. Car batteries are not designed for deep discharge use; I would assume a leisure battery would perform a bit better in this respect but it still won't appreciate long periods uncharged. A fully charged good 12v battery will show about 13.5v, maybe a tad more. If you can get this then all 6 cells are at least functional to some extent. 

The lead dioxide on the plates can get changed into lead sulphate.

You may be able to restore it by a few charge-discharge cycles. The total charge lost over a session will be about (1.3+1+1)*5 hours =16.5 amp.hours which should be ok for a 70 amp.hour battery since it's only using 25% of the theoretical capacity.  From previous experience, the charging efficiency is only about 60% so you would need to put back in about 30 amp.hours for a full recharge. Your charger should adjust this automatically looking at the terminal voltage, and cut back to a trickle charge once 13.5v has been reached.

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2 years in storage without charging is always going to have a negative affect, but the good news is you might be able to work through it by going through a few charge cycles.  

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