February 16, 200719 yr i have just purchased another SLA battery for my 'beast-bike' which i have decided to name El Gordo, please can someone advise me on the best way to get the longest life, ie recharge cycles, out of having 2 identical SLA batteries, should i rotate them after each use ? i use the bike almost every day, should i just swap them over after a week/month ? should i put one in a cool dry place and give it a charge regularly, just using one at a time ? i reckon i use about 50% of the available charge each day. my thanks in advance for any suggestions, beeps
February 16, 200719 yr Rotation in use and charging is best with almost any lead acid battery, beeps. Leaving them idle once in use results in a permanent sulphating of the plates with reluctance to accept charge and capacity loss. Weekly to monthly rotation is ok, but not over a month for best performance. These can be made resistant to these ill effects, but are then not as suited to high discharge, so are the trickle charged type used as burglar alarm standby batteries etc. .
February 16, 200719 yr Author thanks flecc, i'll make it fortnightly then, does the adverse sulphating commence only when a battery has been charged ? ie. if a battery was brand new and uncharged, would it suffer deterioration just being stored ? what i'm asking is.. would it in fact be better to just use one battery, which should last me two years and keep the other stored unused. ? beeps
February 16, 200719 yr For new ones, with ordinary lead acid batteries stock should be turned over regularly, but the permanent kind of sulphating mainly seems to occur once the battery is being cycled in use and the sulphating and it's removal that's part of the normal discharge/charge cycle started. How much that is true for the paste electrolyte SLAs I'm not sure. Given that you've got the spare battery I think it's best you use both. If you keep the spare uncharged for up to two years you could lose a major part of it's life, and if you regularly recharge the spare without using it, you'll be wasting it's life. Using both, the usage will be halved and the life could extend to near the total of two individual lives, and you'll have the added benefit of always having a ready charged up battery for instant use. .
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