Battery Monday

I wrote this entry last Monday (Feb 12th) in Miami and forgot to post it last Friday.

Over the past days I had been monitoring my house batteries. Now that I have the wind generator on line I was hoping to not always have empty house batteries. But reality was far from that. So I went around with my multi-meter, measuring voltage before and after charging, before and after use. And I got more and more convinced that there was something wrong with the house batteries. Since there are two in parallel I thought maybe one of two was suspect, so I separated them. But they seemed to act the exact same (dropping voltage quickly, so basically not holding a charge).

In the process I ran into one suspect wire, that was connected directly to the positive battery terminal. When I reconnected it I heard a beep in the cabin. Took me a while to realize that it was the the good old Loran-C. I had wondered how that things was wire (never found a switch on a control panel that appeared to be connected to it). Indeed, the Loran-C had always been directly on the battery. And apparently it turns itself on as soon as it gets power. Disconnected that wire permanently, now that I had taken down the antenna it is not ever going to get used again. That did not change my battery problem though.

My conclusion was, the house batteries are gone. Being in the middle of Miami, I did not really know how to start shopping for replacement. I had been rereading my books on all the different battery types, their pros and cons, and I thought I was going to use golf cart batteries. They are supposed to give you a great performance, and they are cheaper than marine batteries (apparently the association with marine is more expensive than golf, hmm… that is pretty bad). But, how do you get those from a boat anchored out near downtown Miami, without any local knowledge, the internet or even the yellow pages? Well, I got my boat US brochure out, which lists marinas, and found one marina that looked pretty close to me. So I called them, asked if they carried marine batteries, after some confusion, the said they did, and put me on hold for 10 minutes. Gave up on that (I got new cell phone minutes for the month, but to burn them all on one call just didn’t make sense). Called them again a half hour later (in between I emptied the port locker, thinking I would have to get there eventually anyway). This time I got a little more informative guy, though he sure did not know much about the batteries they were carrying. They were Interstate, which is the same brand I had, so at least I knew what model number I was looking for.

Since the information I got over the phone was both encouraging and incomplete, I decided to get in the dinghy. Turns out that marina is right around the corner of me, it is just not that obvious since it’s behind the bridge, and they have motor boats only (probably because it is too shallow to bring a sailboat in there). Just in case, I brought with me my purchase receipt of my batteries. There is supposed to be a 12 month warranty, but the terms of that were not very clear to me (well, there is a lot of small print, and that excludes failure due to improper use). In the store they do carry the exact batteries I had. So I ask the cashier a few questions about them (hoping that maybe he had some more specific technical data about proper charge voltage etc.). But, he knew nothing more than what was printed on the batteries. He suggested I call the phone number listed on the batteries (which is for warranty replacements, but he did not know that). Well, I can sure call that, you never know. So I call, of course it is a computer voice system, after going through the menu options (always questionable if these things apply to your case or not) I ended up with another phone number to call.

I call that number, of course “all operators are busy” and I could “leave a message”. But I decided to just wait, I was now on the marina’s phone anyway. At last a human being does answer, and I start of saying I bought these batteries in November ’06, in Norfolk, that I was now in Miami, and that they had failed on me. I get connected through (off course), and tell the same story. The lady wants to know where I am at, I get the address, then she is wanting me to come to one of their distribution centers, when I explain her I am on a sailboat and can only get places near the water, she understands that and says she would need to talk to the marina’s personnel. They cashier had been busy, so it took a little while, but he finally gets on the phone with her, and I hear them talk about things like. “who is his distributor”, and it seems like they come to agreement.

The cashier tells me to wait, and a little while later the phone rings, and he gets off in Spanish. He looks at my receipt, talks a little more Spanish, and sure enough: I am getting my batteries replaced on warranty. Wow, I have to acknowledge the “Interstate Batteries” customer service here. That was pretty painless. And, I will be honest here, I am probably to blame some (or most) for these batteries failure. Committing the two capital sins in battery use: overcharging (since it took me a long time to understand how that SpaCreek “AutoMAC Alternator Control” works [and most importantly, that “Auto” here is of very limited applicability]) and deep discharge (not knowing exactly how deeply you can safely discharge a battery, which from what I think I know now, is till about 12.0V).

I had not brought the batteries with me, so got back in my dinghy, though the slight drizzle, went get the batteries. And an hour later I am back on the boat with two replacement batteries.

When installing them I cleaned and sanded the wire terminals as good as possible. Actually, I think I should replace some with proper battery terminal clamps (right now they are all ring terminals), though that marina did not carry those.

Since it has been windy all day, the generator is happily charging, and I am hoping that I can give these batteries a better life time than their predecessors. There is one big advantage over a few months ago: my GPS plotter has the ability to display voltage on its screen. Now, that will really help in preventing over charges (before I had that, I would have to leave the wheel, jump inside, check the SpaCreek display and the voltage on the DC panel, neither is visible from the cockpit).

Got lucky with the weather, there was a slight sprinkle when I was installing the batteries. But an hour later it started to rain for real. Making for a good afternoon to catch up with typing journals.