That sounds a pain.
I do know that there are often heated discussions as to whether there's sufficient difference between car batteries and leisure batteries to merit the price difference. I'm not joining in!
It's possible your leisure batteries might be rescued. I bought my first CTEK charger some years ago as a last attempt to revive a big leisure battery in the caravan we had then. It worked. Went from holding no charge to lasting a whole holiday
without mains hook-up. Have also revived the batteries in my little digger and in several cars over subsequent years. That original charger now sits in the camper doing trickle charge duties through the winter. Have bought at least three more since then, all
doing useful work around the place.
Recently I was asked to help a friend. He leaves a car in France and (for obvious reasons) was not able to visit for a long period. When he got there the battery was completely flat (showing less than 1 volt across the terminals! We jump started
the car and he went for a 50km drive, battery was still flat when he got back. He charged it for a couple of days using his battery charger, still retained no charge. He came and asked for a lift to Roadie (equivalent of Halfords in France) to blow €130 on
a new battery. Before going he agreed we put my CTEK charger (MXS 5.0 version I think) on it as a last resort. It took three days for the charger to complete the reconditioning cycle and fully charge it. But that battery is now back in his car and functioning
perfectly. He also used the charger to rescue his sit on lawnmower battery before he gave it back. In each case the battery had to be completely disconnected from the vehicle for it to do it's magic,
Obviously can't guarantee your batteries can be revived, but my experience has made the investment in the charger well worthwhile. Think their about £68 these days for the one I use for revival jobs, though it also does 6v for the batteries of
couple of my motorbikes, a 12v only version might be out there for less.
No, I've no connection with the company!
On 22 Oct 2020, at 13:27, Alan [via UK HBBR Forum] <
[hidden email]> wrote:
I agree with Paul, fit the size of battery you need for the job in hand. But I won't ever buy another leisure battery after my experience; I lost two 105 Ah batteries due to my failure to regularly charge them over a previous winter, and I've
just recycled two 85Ah batteries because the charger I bought to keep them charged over winter didn't do its job. On the broads this year I could get about 5 minutes of use before I was reduced to the measly 50W to 100W available from 200Wp onboard solar panels.
Below that it's better to row my small boat.
You can buy traction batteries if you don't mind twice the weight and cost for the same nominal energy; I spoke to a hirer of electric launches who said they had to replace one battery this year - which had been in the boat for 16 years!
On the other hand I'm still using the lithium battery cordless drill for DIY which I used in the 2011 Cordless Canoe Challenge.
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