Well, for one thing, modern options like those available here at MK Battery require far less maintenance and safety monitoring. However, it's important to note that whatever kind of lead acid battery you have, there are maintenance measures that you can take to improve performance and longevity. Did you know that flooded lead acid batteries require water to function properly? In these older lead acid battery models, water is responsible for carrying the electrolyte as it circulates.
During the charging process when, for example, your car is running, water is slowly lost as it evaporates due to heat. In hotter climates, this effect is more pronounced. Once the water begins to run low, the electrolyte substances will begin a process called sulfation, during which the chemicals build up on the battery plates and solidify. Once this happens, your battery will no longer hold a full charge. This article assumes you have an understanding of the internal structure and make up of lead acid batteries.
If you are not familiar with lead acid batteries, see our article What is a lead acid battery. Ironically one of the most common reasons for battery failure is not an actual failure of the battery itself, it is people thinking the battery is dead. Another interesting fact is that most people have met someone who replaced their car battery only to find the fault lay elsewhere, such as in the poor performance of an alternator.
This is often due to the difficulties involved in testing a battery and partly due to the relative low costs of batteries. Even technicians often change out batteries first to determine if that fixes the problem, hoping to eliminate wasted time and money looking for issues beyond that. See Why is my battery not holding its charge? The positive and negative electrodes plates in any battery cannot touch each other.
If they do, they immediately short out and the cell dies. Note, this does not mean the entire battery suddenly becomes lifeless, it depends how many cells the battery is made from. A 12 volt car battery, for example, is made of six cells. If one cell shorts out, you still have a 10 volt battery which is usually enough to power dashboard lights, but not to turn the starter motor. If lead acid batteries are cycled too deeply their plates can deform. The crystal build up on the lead plates keeps the plates from working as intended and also eliminates the needed sulfur in the electrolyte solution.
The combination of these issues weakens the ability of the battery to accept and and deliver a charge. When storing sealed lead acid batteries for long periods, it is recommended that you top charge the batteries periodically. The top charge should be for 20 — 24 hours at a constant voltage of 2. If your SLA battery has been stored for some time and is now not holding a charge then it is no longer serviceable and will need to be replaced.
Whatever the battery is, BatteryGuy can offer you substantial savings. To search online visit our how to find your replacement battery page or simply call us Toll Free on See also How to store lead acid batteries.
We have purchased lead acid batteries and kept unused in out store for 3 years. Storage is proper. Will it affect the performance of battery , when put in to service. In order to understand what is going on inside a battery, we need to know how it is constructed, and what happens when we discharge and re-charge it. A lead acid battery cell is approximately 2V. Therefore there are six cells in a 12V battery — each one comprises two lead plates which are immersed in dilute Sulphuric Acid the electrolyte — which can be either liquid or a gel.
The lead oxide and is not solid, but spongy and has to be supported by a grid. The porosity of the lead in this condition makes it fully accessible to the the electrolyte, enabling a chemical reaction to occur relatively easily throughout the thickness of the plate as the battery performs its task of storing and releasing energy. That chemical reaction is fairly complicated — but we need only notice a couple of things about it: As power is drawn from a battery sulphuric acid is lost from the electrolyte and combines with the lead plates to form lead sulphate.
Conversely — recharging the battery forces the sulphate to leave the lead plates and return, once more, to the electrolyte forming dilute Sulphuric Acid.
The second thing we need to notice is that if the charging voltage is too high, or is maintained for too long another chemical reaction begins in earnest: the water in the electrolyte decomposes into oxygen and hydrogen. The decomposition of the water in the electrolyte into oxygen and hydrogen gas electrolysis is normal during the final stages of battery-charging — but is usually quite limited.
Wet-cell batteries require topping-up periodically with de-ionised water to replace the liquid which has been lost over time. Sealing the battery prevents the Hydrogen and Oxygen gases from escaping; instead they recombine under pressure, the gases are trapped and are re-absorbed during the discharge cycle. Such batteries are, however, provided with a pressure-release valve in case of over-gassing — caused by charging at too high a voltage. Driven by the movement of electrons, the cyclical passing back and forth of sulphate, between the lead plates and the electrolyte, sounds fairly simple — so what could possibly go wrong?
Three things in the main:. The spongy lead plates can become coated in a hard layer of lead sulfate crystals which prevents access to the plates. Electrolyte — either as a liquid or a gel — decomposes and is lost as gas. The electrolyte is the agent for chemical reaction — when it is much reduced, or absent, the battery cannot function. These are the principle maladies which cause either an unacceptable loss of capacity in a battery, or a failure to store or release energy at all.
There are others. To make matters worse, the functional limitations brought about by any one of these damaging events, will frequently trigger a second or third mode of failure. Partially discharged batteries should be re-charged as soon as possible.
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