ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Your car battery may be very low if your driving habits have changed with all the COVID shutdowns/restrictions (or any other reason you are driving less). Check it and keep it charged! Here's what happened to us:
DW was going to go shopping Sat AM, and her car wouldn't turn over, just "click-click-click". Battery will be 6 years old next January, so about time to replace anyhow.
But I suspect the main issue is the short and infrequent trips have just not kept the battery charged. We use my car for longer trips. I measured and it was at 11.7V, which is very low, but maybe not a bad cell.
So I wondered about my car (3 YO original battery), and it was at 12.0V which is also very low (and I had some extended trips, ~ 40 minutes, a few weeks ago), but it started, so we did our shopping together.
Some notes on Battery Voltage vs capacity (measured after battery has 'rested', off the charger, for > 20 minutes):
12.70V ~ 100% capacity
12.48V ~ 75%
12.24V ~ 50%
12.06V ~ 25%
11.89V ~ 0%
Dropping below ~ 10.2V can permanently damage the battery.
So I put our ancient simple non-electronic/non-smart charger on hers for a few hours Sat evening, but didn't want to leave it overnight unattended. This morning, it measures ~ 12.2V. I wondered, how long do I need to keep this charger on to reach full capacity?
Well, the RC25 rating is 85 minutes, so that's 25 Amps @ 85 minutes, which is ~ 35 Amp Hours (25⋅85/60). I measured the charger current after it was on for 10 minutes or so at ~ 1.3 Amps. So that indicates it would take ~ 35/1.3 ~ 30 hours for a full charge - far more than I would have thought.
So I'm going to leave it on and check it before dinner to see where I get, then do my car tomorrow. Oh, I did plan on just buying a new battery when we were out Saturday, but the place I go to was closed for the Labor Day w/e (with no note on their website!). While I suspect this battery will be OK after a full charge, I'll still replace it before winter as a precaution.
So not a bad idea to check your battery voltage to avoid a surprise. Fortunately, this happened at home which made things less stressful.
-ERD50
DW was going to go shopping Sat AM, and her car wouldn't turn over, just "click-click-click". Battery will be 6 years old next January, so about time to replace anyhow.
But I suspect the main issue is the short and infrequent trips have just not kept the battery charged. We use my car for longer trips. I measured and it was at 11.7V, which is very low, but maybe not a bad cell.
So I wondered about my car (3 YO original battery), and it was at 12.0V which is also very low (and I had some extended trips, ~ 40 minutes, a few weeks ago), but it started, so we did our shopping together.
Some notes on Battery Voltage vs capacity (measured after battery has 'rested', off the charger, for > 20 minutes):
12.70V ~ 100% capacity
12.48V ~ 75%
12.24V ~ 50%
12.06V ~ 25%
11.89V ~ 0%
Dropping below ~ 10.2V can permanently damage the battery.
So I put our ancient simple non-electronic/non-smart charger on hers for a few hours Sat evening, but didn't want to leave it overnight unattended. This morning, it measures ~ 12.2V. I wondered, how long do I need to keep this charger on to reach full capacity?
Well, the RC25 rating is 85 minutes, so that's 25 Amps @ 85 minutes, which is ~ 35 Amp Hours (25⋅85/60). I measured the charger current after it was on for 10 minutes or so at ~ 1.3 Amps. So that indicates it would take ~ 35/1.3 ~ 30 hours for a full charge - far more than I would have thought.
So I'm going to leave it on and check it before dinner to see where I get, then do my car tomorrow. Oh, I did plan on just buying a new battery when we were out Saturday, but the place I go to was closed for the Labor Day w/e (with no note on their website!). While I suspect this battery will be OK after a full charge, I'll still replace it before winter as a precaution.
So not a bad idea to check your battery voltage to avoid a surprise. Fortunately, this happened at home which made things less stressful.
-ERD50