New boat for AlanH

[AlanH]

Mr Heber, come sailing w me on Dura Mater and experience the Pelagic magic for yourself.

OK, then! Calendar check...

[BobJ]

A name, a name....she is currently named "Blue eyes" which is fine, though it doesn't exactly thrill me. I can think of a mess of good Scottish names, but I have a really sweet battle flag left over from when I had my Santana 3030 with a huge "W" on it and I'd love to use it again. It was a present from Joan and it never hurts to make points with the lasses who make you stuff.

WYNDA - look it up.

[AlanH]

Bob, I like that. Now to let it percolate for a bit.

[sleddog]

What a lovely Scottish name!

[AlanH]

I got a pretty big (meaning, probably expensive) sealed battery with the new boat. It doesn't say "AGM" on it and it doesn't say "Gel" on it, so I'm assuming that it's a sealed wet cell. Yes, it's sealed.

OK, that battery, to the best of my knowledge, sat in the boat for well over a year, maybe as much as two years just....sitting there.....It wasn't attached to any load. I assumed that it was discharged and sulfated to uselessness.

OK, so the other night I set it up on a relatively smart three-stage charger and let it run all night long. I checked it after about 90 minutes and the charger was saying that it was charged. It was accepting less than 4 amps charging current. I thought to myself "No Way"... and let it run overnight anyway. In the morning, the charger was saying that the battery was accepting about 1 amp of current.

24 hours later, the voltage on the battery was 12.8. Hurrah! says I. At the 48 hour mark, this morning, it's still 12.8 volts. So I'm thinking that this battery may actually have some useful life left in it.

Unless of course I'm an ignorant dork and not understanding why it's 12.8 volts instead of the 12.6 that I expected. Care to enlighten me, y'all?

Mind you, I'm aware that even if I'm right that the battery still has some life left in it, I still might be an ignorant dork.

[BobJ]

Does it say ANYTHING on it? The 12.8 volts is possible, although mine "rests" at more like 12.7v

[AlanH]

It says "GUARDIAN by Douglas"
Non-spillable lead acid battery Model number **** 100 amp hours

A typical US made deep cycle battery, but a substantial one. It's now been 4 days and it's still holding at 12.76 volts

[JohnS]

I'd put a load on it (a car headlight bulb works well, use some test leads to connect it) and see how long it takes to get down to just under 12.0

[AlanH]

I'd put a load on it (a car headlight bulb works well, use some test leads to connect it) and see how long it takes to get down to just under 12.0

Good idea. Any quantifiable load, actually, would work.