Info Manual: SLA battery

Showing posts with label SLA battery. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Battery Voltage Indicator

Many enthusiast and motorcycle rider ride their bike, using electric starter to start the engine undoubtly knowing the battery gone flat, charging system might have gone down but no visual indicator that the system indeed is not charging or have problems...so in the first place why not build one to visualize you anything bout battery voltage on board the bike.

Using pic microcontroller and little components, you can create one like as shown.

Motorbike Battery Care, Maintenance & Fault Finding

If a motorbike is used regularly & a few basic checks are performed once a month, a motorbike battery should be serviceable for at least 3 years. Maintenance free & gel filled batteries require very little maintenance once they have been correctly charged & installed.

However, it is worth remembering that, due to their size, motorcycle batteries can be very temperamental if not properly maintained & will not take much abuse. Correctly charging your battery & checking the battery at least once a month will usually ensure trouble free usage.

Based on numerous years of experience with motorcycle batteries, we have found that a faulty motorbike battery will usually either fail within the first month or won't function correctly from the start. Most motorbike batteries that fail after a month have failed due to being incorrectly charged or due to being abused.

Motorbike batteries are very simple in their construction & the return rate for genuinely faulty batteries due to manufacturing faults is less than 1%. It is worth noting that most motorbike battery warranties only cover manufacturing defects or faults, not abuse by the owner or failure to keep the battery charged.

Common Motorbike Battery Facts

~Although most automotive batteries are referred to as either 6 volt or 12 volt, these numbers are only assigned to batteries to make it easier to distinguish between the 2 types of electrical systems & don't represent the true voltage of a motorbike battery.

~A healthy 12 volt motorbike battery should be between 12.5 & 13.5 volts & a healthy 6 volt battery should be between 6.5 & 7.2 volts if tested on a motorbike whilst resting (ignition switched off)

~Once a 12 volt battery drops below 12.4 volts (while resting) it will start to struggle to start most motorcycles.

~Brand new motorcycle batteries are only charged to about 80% of their full capacity (around 12 volts) which is why they need a top off charge before they are initially used

~Even a motorbike battery that isn't connected to a motorcycle will gradually lose it's charge. Once a battery is filled with electrolyte (battery acid), the chemical reaction that produces electricity starts to work & the process of 'self-discharge' begins. Batteries not connected to a vehicle will discharge slower than connected batteries

~A motorcycle battery charger specially designed for the purpose should always be used to charge a motorbike battery. Car & general automotive chargers use a higher rate of charge which forces a higher current into the battery very quickly. This can lead to overheating & plate damage as motorbike batteries are not built to take this kind of charge. A motorbike battery should be charged at about one tenth it's amp/hour rating (for most motorbike batteries this means about 1-2 amp's per hour).

~Distilled or de-ionized water only should be used to top up a conventional or lead acid battery. Other kinds of water (like tap water) contain elements which will permanently damage the plates in a battery