Autobatterie instandsetzbar? | Posts 48+

Have you ever looked into the charging strategies of chargers?
Because charging the batteries on a charger designed for large machinery might not be the best thing for them.

I personally use the CTEK charger and have also "saved" several batteries.
The pulse automatically believes it has a full battery.


Sure, here is the translation of the text from German to English:

"Hello"

Hi,

I believe that all this research has no chance against the real biggest enemy of batteries, namely the highly variable manufacturing quality in detail and random events like strong impacts during driving.

Despite the most careful handling, Ulf's miniature battery is already showing signs of weakness after only three years.

My Ibiza came with a 70 Ah battery from the factory, which I never treated well. The car was manufactured in May 2001, and I bought it in November. So, it sat around for a while, which is definitely not good for the battery. Then, from November 2001 to April 2008, it had to endure daily trips of 9 km twice a day (+ some longer trips), and from April 2008 to February 2012, it had daily trips of 13 km twice a day. These routes were in city traffic, and during the winter, the lights were always on. Again, short trips and city driving are not good for the battery. It never saw a mains-powered charger, only the car itself. In the end, it didn't really die after over 10 years despite all these adverse conditions, but it became so weak that it could only start in -15°C if the ice-cold TDI (which acts as a parking heater) started on the first compression stroke. Then, I got a new one...

The Ibiza in question belonged to the PQ23 generation, which lacked features like onboard network management and similar functionalities.

What can we learn from this? The individual differences between the batteries, and also the influence of randomness, are significantly greater than what can be compensated for with sophisticated measures.

Best regards,

Jan.

Blackfrosch wrote:

Have you ever looked into the charging strategies of chargers? Because charging on a charger designed for a large, heavy-duty machine, like a forklift, might not be the best thing for the batteries.

A setting of 14.4V (at 20°C) with roughly appropriate temperature compensation is essentially the same as what the battery receives in a car.

Quote:

I personally use the CTEK charger and have also "rescued" several batteries. When the battery is fully charged, it automatically believes it is.

However, you cannot determine the exact point, the remaining charge threshold, at which it switches from full charge to trickle charge (14.4 -> 13.8V). Therefore, this device is not suitable for determining the final leakage current -> it wouldn't be for me.

Jan, I also still have one of those in the car after 11 years.

"During the summer, I removed the factory-installed battery from my rice cooker and put it into retirement after ten years of use. It was clearly struggling to crank the 1.3 16V engine, but it still managed to start the car. I heard that the starter motor runs faster with the new battery."

A few charging cycles on the "smart" Lidl charger (which also has several programs) restored them to working order until I replaced them. I wouldn't have bet on whether they would still have worked in freezing winter temperatures.

Jan6K wrote:

Short trips and city driving are not good for the battery... The questionable Ibiza still belonged to the PQ23 generation, so it didn't have onboard network management or similar features.

Hi Jan,

Even without a sophisticated onboard computer system, your 6K-GP01 Ibiza, thanks to its well-sized alternator, was not among those car generations where frequent city driving inevitably caused battery problems.
As long as the vehicle's on-board voltage doesn't drop (due to low engine RPM and simultaneously many active power-consuming devices), the average battery charge level primarily depends on the idle current of the parked vehicle, the power consumption until the engine starts, and the engine running times in between.
If you had, for example, taken 1 hour for each of the 9 km in stop-and-go traffic, without turning off the engine, it could still have been a relatively good experience for the battery, despite the 99% city driving.
Covering 9 km at an assumed average speed of 50 km/h would only take 11 minutes, which, in my opinion, is likely too short a time, even with a top-quality charging system, to maintain a battery at a healthy charging level in the long term.

Quote:

She ultimately didn't really die after over 10 years, despite all these adverse circumstances, but she became so weak that she could only start at -15 degrees Celsius if the ice-cold TDI (parking light) engaged on the first compressions.

This was possibly the result of long-term sulfation. It would have been interesting to see if the battery could have been revived with a pulse charging refresher.
For example, Elektor writes in the introduction to a battery pulser circuit (issue 9/2001):

Quote:

According to a recent study, sulfation is the cause of premature failure in approximately 80% of all lead-acid batteries.

It was probably the same with my Japanese battery, whose casing had almost nothing legible on it, apart from the nominal voltage and a rather small capacity indication. My knowledge of Japanese doesn't extend that far. When left standing in the garage, it degraded so much after three weeks that it couldn't even power a fuel pump for 3 minutes, which I wanted to use to transfer the contents of a metal barrel into smaller containers. I then said goodbye to it permanently and took it for recycling.

"I've already used a plastic device called a "Power Brick" in three cars, and it's designed to prevent sulfation. It sends pulses of electricity to the battery at regular intervals. However, its (albeit very low) power consumption also costs something, and you should keep your vehicle running while using it."

Hi,

Quote:

It would have been interesting to see if the battery could be revived with a charge pulse refresher.

I wouldn't even have considered carrying a battery that's almost 11 years old from the street up to the third floor to test it. A 70Ah battery is heavy... and at that time, it was freezing cold outside.

Quote:

premature or early termination.

Almost 11 years is not "too early" for a car battery to fail.

I'm really curious to see how long the tiny 61 Ah battery in the Octavia will last. There's quite a bit more technology packed in, but the management system seems much more modern. Just recently, at an outside temperature of 5 degrees Celsius, the idle speed increased to 1000 rpm (instead of 760). I was able to reproduce this later by turning on the heating to its warmest setting. It seems that the Climatronic system is activating the PTC pre-heater, which in turn increases the idle speed...

Best regards,

Jan.

Quote:

Almost 11 years is not "early" for a car battery.

Sure, here's the translation:

"Best regards," or "Sincerely,".
Herbert.

@Ulf
With my CTEK charger, I can switch between charging mode and maintenance mode at any time. To display the charging current, you would need to use a clamp meter.

"I occasionally charge my RunningBull Banner AGM battery whenever I have the vehicle connected to the charger. It's convenient to connect it directly to the battery box, where a permanently installed cable is located..."

You are absolutely right that 14.3-14.4 volts is simply the output of the alternator. That's exactly the problem. These "smart" onboard power systems don't really fully charge the batteries. I always notice this because, after a night with the charger, the car starts almost as if the battery is completely drained, even though it normally starts extremely quickly. You can definitely feel the difference.

The CTEK charger will likely take about an hour at a maximum of 10A to fully charge the battery, even after driving 500km on the highway. As mentioned, the charger automatically adjusts its output to help remove or prevent sulfation.

So, for optimal stress-free care,

Furthermore, I installed a Banner Running Bull AGM battery, specifically for the reasons Jan mentioned, because the "standard" batteries were completely unreliable for a while. Between 2000 and 2005, there were very good OEM batteries, especially for VAG vehicles. After the low point in 2009, things are slowly improving again...

Sure, here is the translation of the text from German to English:

"Hello"

Blackfrosch wrote:

The CTEK charger will probably take about an hour to charge at a maximum of 10A until the battery is completely full, even after 500 km on the highway.

This makes me suspicious:
You'll likely struggle to complete 500 km in under 4 hours. If the CTEK can still push at least 10Ah into the battery without overcharging it (refer to the CTEK instructions: during the normal charging phase, it receives 14.4V, possibly temperature-compensated), then you must have started the highway journey with a nearly empty battery – or your car's battery is not receiving enough charging voltage. In that case, it's no surprise that the starter motor sounds noticeably faster after just one night of recharging.

For comparison:
"Most days, I drive about 30 minutes each way, and during each trip, I let the Ibiza roll downhill for about 1 km with the engine off. Even then, the electric power steering alone draws a significant number of amp-minutes from the battery. However, when I connect the charger, it only operates at full power (max. ~6 amps effective) for a few seconds. Then, the 14.4V voltage limit is reached, and the charging current starts to decrease. After no more than 30 minutes (estimated) of being connected, the charging current drops below 1A effective at 14.4V."

Quote:

"In the background," as mentioned, the charger automatically pulses to break down/prevent the formation of sulfates, etc. So, for optimal stress-free maintenance,

. According to my understanding, the CTEK charges in intervals, with the battery voltage fluctuating between 12.7V (start of topping charge) and 14.4V (end of topping charge). This prevents (new) sulfation due to self-discharge, but in my opinion, it is not a special treatment to dissolve existing sulfation.

I need to correct my statement. It takes about an hour, with a maximum of 10A, to reach the maintenance mode. I don't know the exact charging current... I don't have a clamp-on ammeter .

Besides the revive function, there's also the Recond function. However, as I mentioned, I've already managed to get several nearly dead batteries through the winter.

It doesn't spin noticeably faster; you really have to pay close attention to tell the difference.
My charging voltage is always stable at a minimum of 14.3 volts.

I might need to do a quiescent current measurement sometime, although I was able to camp for 3-4 days and charge a radio and phone without any problems.

Blackfrosch wrote:

It takes about an hour to charge, with a maximum of 10A, until it switches to standby mode.

This is the key question: based on which values is the decision made to switch to standby?
I've had batteries on a simple charger (with an analog multimeter in series) where the charging current decreased over several hours, approaching the final value at 14.4V.
If I then read in the manual for the CTEK MXS10, for example, "Absorption (= constant voltage charging with 14.4V) max. 10 h", then my batteries would not have been able to fully charge during that time - unless I manually restart the charging cycle. But even then, the question remains: what residual charging current or charging current change rate (mA / time) does the CTEK use as a threshold for full charge... and this non-user-adjustable threshold applies uniformly according to the manual for capacities from 20 to 200Ah .

No, thank you, I'd rather stick with my simple devices and use them according to my experience, instead of subjecting my batteries to a pre-programmed, one-size-fits-all charging routine .