ive been given a camping battery by my parents but it hasnt been charged for a good few years if i charge it up would it be ok to use also whats the difference between a car and a camping battery
If I remember rightly the plates inside the camping battery are much closer together to hold a better charge. If it is not a sealed unit, make sure the electrolyte is just covering the plates and charge it up.
By camping battery, do you mean a leisure battery? One of the big 85 amp-hour things? If so, the big difference between these and car betteries is that the leisure batteries are designed for slow, low current discharges that you will get when running things like fridges, lamps and the like off them. Car batteries are designed for one big, large current draw that is required to turn over a car engine.
Car batteries will not give as much output as an equivalently rated leisure battery if running things off them for many hours.
Leisure batteries are the type of things they use in caravans and camper vans, I think (correct me if I'm wrong, I just use thm at work). If you want to use if for camping, check the current draw on the items you want to use to see how long the battery will last powering it. If the battery is in good order, you should get about 90% of the rating out of it before the voltage drops too much. You could always test before going and time how long it lasts.
Also, these type of batteries are particularly susceptable to over-charging, so don't leave it charging overnight, unless you have an 'intelligent' charger.
if it hasnt been charged for a few years the chances are its no good but you can allways try.
if you can take the tops of make sure the plates are covered with distilled water, when i used these i charged them for 6-8 hours at a time with a low charge then let them stand for the same amount of time, keep doing this untill it is charged.
i allways found if the battery was no good it would not show any sign of charging on the charger.
if you use a ordinery domestic charger it will take a long time they quote a lot of these chargers at 4or5 amps but i found they only charge at 1or2 amps so if its an 85amp it not going to charge over night.
mike
------------- they said it couldnt be done so i left it and went camping
a bad days camping is better than a good day at work
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Topic: Camping batteries
