B8200 battery troubles...

[MichaelAL]

Hi all,

I accidentally left my key in in 'on' position a couple of weeks ago, and so when i went to mow my lawn last weekend, the battery was predictably dead. This has happened many times over the years, so I did not think much of it. I jumped it from my car, and used the tractor for an hour or so to mow the lawn. Put it away and figured all would be well since running the tractor should charge the battery. Well i went to mow again today and the battery was dead again (like really very dead, the starter doesnt even make noise and only the fuel guage works). Again I jumped it and mowed the lawn for about an hour. After finishing mowing, I put tractor away and killed the engine. I tried starting it again immediately but found it was completely unresponsive. At this point I pulled the battery and hooked it up to my trickle charger, but that just blinked at me suggesting there is a charging error. This battery was brand new as of September 2021 and is a duralast 34-DL. I am now recalling that the previous battery that I replaced with this one did similar things after 3-4 years... am I just using the wrong kind of batteries? Is there something else going on?

Thanks!

Michael

 

[Edke6bnl]

might want to check to see if the battery is being charged, not familiar with the unit you have but possibly running on a completely dead battery and depending on the charge system to do all the work my fry the charging set up. should see maybe 13-14+ volts at the battery trying to charge up the battery. just a thought.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

odds are 'an hour or so' isn't enough time to properly, fully recharge the battery. Would need to know the battery specs and the charging specs of the tractor to confirm though.

 

[Dave_eng]

Tractor has a dynamo for battery charging and other electrical loads. Max output is 15 amps at high engine speed.

You need to be taking some electrical measurements to determine if the battery is being charged.

The simplest test is to measure the voltage between the battery terminals with the tractor at high engine speed. At least 14 volts should be present.

Please post a photo of the top of your battery and cables.

When you jump from your car where on the tractor do you connect the ground alligator clamp?

Dave

 

[GreensvilleJay]

pretty sure a 15A dynamo will take more than an hour to recharge a 700CCA battery. remmeber some of that 15A is needed to run the tractor, so really 10A would be a 'good' figure.
I'd put the battery, put on the bench with a quality battery charger,cheaper than running the tractor full out for 24hrs, or more...

 

[wgator]

With multimeter on battery positive and negative terminals at fast rpm what is the dc voltage reading? With engine off, meter battery pos to neg, what is voltage reading? Good battery should read 12.5 or better ( for non agm battery) for fully charged battery.

 

[07wingnut]

You can only kill a battery so many times until it decides to stay dead. Probably has less lives than a cat.

 

[Mark_BX25D]

odds are 'an hour or so' isn't enough time to properly, fully recharge the battery.

It should be.


It might just be the battery. Lead-acid batteries don't take kindly to being left uncharged for any lenght of time. Best to get it load tested.

If it tests okay, check the voltage while charging (engine running).

If that's okay, it's time to look for a parasitic draw.

 

[JohnDB]

I accidentally left my key in in 'on' position a couple of weeks ago, and so when i went to mow my lawn last weekend, the battery was predictably dead.... This has happened many times over the years .... am I just using the wrong kind of batteries? Is there something else going on?

Michael if you are running your batteries flat every now and again, I'm surprised you get even 3 - 4 years out them. Like 07Wingnut says, you can only kill a battery so many times until it decides to stay dead.

So you are the problem Is there nothing to warn you that the key is left on? On my tractor I couldn't see the idiot light in the sun so I fitted a low milliamp miniature buzzer under the dash, hooked it up to the engine oil pressure circuit. $10 investment and a bit of mucking around has saved me $hundreds. Plus, you get an audible alarm if you loose engine oil pressure when mowing .

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Mark, there's is ZERO chance you can fully recharge a 'dead' 770 CCA battery in one hour with any charger supplying 10 amps.

 

[Chanceywd]

Some trickle chargers now need to detect a certain minimum voltage level to even charge a low battery. I have fooled them by connecting jumper to a good battery for a second. You would confirm lack of charging voltage before and then if it was charging after the jump connection. Not saying it isn't dead, dead, just why the trickle charger only blinked.

Bill

 

[lynnmor]

Mark, there's is ZERO chance you can fully recharge a 'dead' 770 CCA battery in one hour with any charger supplying 10 amps.

There is ZERO chance with ANY charger, the battery will take only the amps that it will take.

 

[DustyRusty]

Battery technology as well as trickle charger technology has dramatically changed in the past 6 or 8 years, so if you are using old technology to charge a modern battery, you will do more harm to it than benefit. New chargers sense voltage and pulse the incoming current to break up sulfation without heating up the battery. I purchased a Corvair once that sat in a basement for about 10 years, and was able to jump-start the car and drive it home on the stale gas, approximately 150 miles without stopping the engine. When I got home, the dome light barely had a flicker of light coming from it. I put a 1 amp charger on that battery and left it for about 2 weeks while I worked on the car. The old lead acid battery came back to full charge, and lasted me another 2 years, by using the 1 amp charger on the battery when the car wasn't in use over the winter. Now I have a Genius 3500 charger that I use on all of my old cars to keep the batteries fully charged when not in use. Some of the cars are barely driven once a month, so I have decided that it is time to find them new homes. I am down to 4 classics, and it is still a chore to enjoy them all. Buy yourself a new Genius charger and hook it up permanently to the machine. They have a pigtail that connects to the battery and a quick disconnect for the wire that is on the charger, so it is as simple as disconnecting the charger when you want to use the machine, and reconnecting it when you are through. You will save yourself a lot of time and money changing batteries.

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[RBsingl]

I keep a Ctek smart maintainer hooked to my 2016 Corvette Z06 all winter, another is dedicated to the battery for my standby generator, and a third rotates between my other vehicles and tractors when needed.

It is easy to overcharge both old and new batteries with "dumb" chargers and a charger not designed for the higher desired voltage of an AGM battery won't reach a full charge.

I have an older console type charger/starter I bought 20 years ago and I have used it a few times to start the tractor and mower but I wouldn't use its charging function given the better options available now. As I recall, you select a current limited 2, 10, or 50 amp charge level and with either the 10 or 50 it would be very easy to "cook" a battery.

AGM batteries are particularly sensitive to an excessive charge rate. In normal operation, they don't vent anything which is part of their long life. They have a small "chemical refinery" within the design that will absorb and convert gases that are vented in a traditional lead acid battery thus allowing for long life even with the very small amount of liquid electrolyte within the battery. But if charged at an excessive rate, gas will be produced at a rate too fast to be absorbed and converted and will go out the vent tube resulting in loss of liquid and greatly reduced battery life.

Many car manufacturers place AGM batteries into a small mostly sealed compartment so they rely upon proper vent hose installation to avoid hydrogen gas buildup in the compartment. A mistake owners sometimes make when replacing the battery is neglecting to move the vent plug from the old battery to the new battery. AGM batteries have vent ports on both sides of the battery and the unused port must be plugged when in operation for the OEM vent system to operate properly. So when replacing an older AGM battery, make sure to grab the vent plug from the old battery to install in the unused port of the new battery.

Rodger

 

[fried1765]

I keep a Ctek smart maintainer hooked to my 2016 Corvette Z06 all winter, another is dedicated to the battery for my standby generator, and a third rotates between my other vehicles and tractors when needed.

It is easy to overcharge both old and new batteries with "dumb" chargers and a charger not designed for the higher desired voltage of an AGM battery won't reach a full charge.

I have an older console type charger/starter I bought 20 years ago and I have used it a few times to start the tractor and mower but I wouldn't use its charging function given the better options available now. As I recall, you select a current limited 2, 10, or 50 amp charge level and with either the 10 or 50 it would be very easy to "cook" a battery.

AGM batteries are particularly sensitive to an excessive charge rate. In normal operation, they don't vent anything which is part of their long life. They have a small "chemical refinery" within the design that will absorb and convert gases that are vented in a traditional lead acid battery thus allowing for long life even with the very small amount of liquid electrolyte within the battery. But if charged at an excessive rate, gas will be produced at a rate too fast to be absorbed and converted and will go out the vent tube resulting in loss of liquid and greatly reduced battery life.

Many car manufacturers place AGM batteries into a small mostly sealed compartment so they rely upon proper vent hose installation to avoid hydrogen gas buildup in the compartment. A mistake owners sometimes make when replacing the battery is neglecting to move the vent plug from the old battery to the new battery. AGM batteries have vent ports on both sides of the battery and the unused port must be plugged when in operation for the OEM vent system to operate properly. So when replacing an older AGM battery, make sure to grab the vent plug from the old battery to install in the unused port of the new battery.

Rodger

Are you sure that new AGM batteries don't come with a vent plug in one end, so that it can be swapped as needed?

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Seems every mfr has their 'best charging algorithm' for the different types of batteries they make. Very easy to copy with a $1 PIC computer. I only have 'wet lead acid' batteries here ,so the SCR based charger I designed and built back in '74 still works fine for them. For anyone who doesn't know which end of the soldering iron to hold, an 'off the shelf' 4 stage charger (desulph/charge fast/charge slow/maintain ) is the best idea.

 

[Mark_BX25D]

Mark, there's is ZERO chance you can fully recharge a 'dead' 770 CCA battery in one hour with any charger supplying 10 amps.

Absolutely right. I was thinking of keeping up with normal usage. My bad.

 

[RBsingl]

Are you sure that new AGM batteries don't come with a vent plug in one end, so that it can be swapped as needed?

I have replaced three of them from two different retailers and none came with a plug. I thought it was odd but others have experienced the same.

I wouldn't have thought about it the first time I changed one but the helpful auto counter person at Farm and Fleet reminded me to keep the plug out of my current battery. None of the three brands they carried in the size for my 2014 ATS had a plug in either vent. Some of the early GM vehicles with AGM batteries used vent tubes in both sides but I don't think that was ever very common-sort of like having dual exhausts on a naturally aspirated economy 4 cylinder

Rodger

 

[DustyRusty]

.......... For anyone who doesn't know which end of the soldering iron to hold, an 'off the-shelf' 4-stage charger (desulph/charge fast/charge slow/maintain ) is the best idea.

Duh, do I hold the shiny copper end or the end with the wooden black handle? Pwees edumacate me.

 

[Fordtech86]

Many car manufacturers place AGM batteries into a small mostly sealed compartment so they rely upon proper vent hose installation to avoid hydrogen gas buildup in the compartment.

thankfully they don’t place these batteries under the driver seat, under the back seat, or in the trunk/frunk