A properly charged battery is essential for a comfortable ride. In the cold season, it is especially important that the battery provides a reliable start of the car engine.
Modern cars, especially executive class, have a battery charging control unit that monitors the main parameters of the process. There are no such devices in budget category vehicles. Experienced drivers perform this task on their own. Consider how to make the most complete control over the process of charging the battery.
Causes of violation of the battery charging process
The main parameter in the process of charging the battery is the charge current. Many parameters depend on its value.
Capacity replenishment rate
There is an opinion that for normal charging of the battery, the charge current should be 10% of its capacity, i.e. with a battery capacity of 50 Amp * hours, the charge current will be 5 Amperes. Under such conditions, it will gain its capacity up to the nominal value of 10 hours.
Imagine that you were taken from the wires of another car in the winter, and in order to fully charge the car battery, you need to drive a car for 10 hours in a row, that is, drive five hundred kilometers.
It is believed that in order to replenish the battery charge to the nominal value, it is enough to drive 30 kilometers in a normal cycle, and in urban traffic conditions half as much. That is, if your work is located at a distance of more than 10 kilometers from home, this is quite enough not to worry about recharging the battery outside the car.
Another case is when work is close to home. You spent the capacity when starting the car, quickly drove to work, then also home. After a week or two, your battery died. And not at all because something is wrong with the car, just such a rhythm of driving.
In this case, you should think about warming up the engine even in the warm season, just so that the battery is always in a charged state.
Let's return to the charge current. If it is enough to drive a car for 30 kilometers to fully charge the battery, and not 500, as in the example, therefore, the charge current of the car's generator is not 5 Amperes, but much higher.
Battery life
Normal battery life is more than five years. Used cars imported from abroad have on board fully functional seven- to nine-year-old batteries. There, however, the storage conditions for cars are different, and the temperature is higher in winter.
There are three reasons for the low durability of the battery: violation of the battery charge mode, the quality of the battery, the human factor, in other words, laziness.
Let's start with the first one. If the battery is not charged to its full capacity all the time, then the plates undergo a sulfation process. Sulfation, or the formation of lead sulphate on the plates, can be compared to a stomach ulcer in humans, only in humans it can be treated, and a battery ulcer is practically impossible to treat.
There are various methods of full discharge-charge, charging with pulsed currents. Maybe there is a recovery for some percentages, but if the battery is completely laid down, then alas ...
The quality of the battery depends on the manufacturer. Modern technologies only affect the increase in battery capacity while reducing the size and weight, respectively, the amount of lead.
Better quality? If there are two different copies with the same capacity, starting current, cost, it is better to buy the one that is heavier, there is more lead, it will last longer.
About the human factor. The biggest mistake made by car owners is to park the car in the fall with the battery until spring.
If the battery spends several months in a discharged, not even fully charged state, and even in the cold with a low electrolyte density, it is unlikely that it will live until spring.
If you periodically use the car in winter, then regularly (a couple of times a week) you need to start the car and warm it up for at least fifteen minutes, checking the charging voltage.
If the car is not used in winter, it is better to remove the battery from the car, fully charge it and store it in a warm room, recharging it once a month.
During everyday use of the vehicle, it is necessary to regularly check the charge of the battery from the generator.
How to check the battery charge from the generator
Checking the battery charging process is possible by the following methods:
- visual diagnostics;
- computer diagnostics;
- diagnostics with the help of physical measuring instruments.
Visual control
Visual diagnostics can and should be done at least once a week.
In summer, it is imperative to control the electrolyte level either through the light or through the electrolyte refilling holes. If the battery is maintenance-free, watch the indicator window.
When the recharging process is in progress (the charging current is too high, it is possible if the generator malfunctions), the electrolyte boils away. This leads to an increase in the concentration of acid, corrosion of the plates, an even greater increase in current and temperature.
Video - car battery charging voltage from a generator, leakage currents and other checks:
Such an avalanche-like process can destroy the battery in a couple of hours. Therefore, if you see any paint changes, foreign deposits, or a change in the shade of the battery case near one of the cans or electrolyte top-up caps above the battery installation site, immediately establish the cause.
If the control window of the battery during continuous operation is not in the green zone, then the charging process is disturbed.
The visual method can also be attributed to the control of the "battery" light on the dashboard. If it does not light up when the ignition is turned on, or does not go out after starting the engine, or flickers depending on the engine speed, then the battery charging process is disturbed.
Another tip is to visually check the charging process. At night, pay attention to the level of brightness of the low-beam headlights as the engine speed changes. This is best done by illuminating a white wall. If the brightness increases with an increase in engine speed, then the voltage-current regulator in the generator is not working properly, it is necessary to check the generator.
Computer diagnostics
Computer diagnostics of vehicles equipped with a battery charge controller will give a complete picture of the operation of the generator, the charge control unit, and the level of battery performance.
But there are few such cars. Conventional computer diagnostics will provide information about the voltage of the on-board network. But it can also be obtained using a conventional multimeter.
Diagnostics with instruments
Experienced drivers remember that the garage tool certainly included a hydrometer and a load fork.
The battery hydrometer is used to measure the density of the electrolyte. Normal density is from 1.23 to 1.28 g / cm3. The lower the temperature, the higher the density must be, otherwise the battery will freeze and fail.
With the help of a load fork, you can determine the "spurious" jar and repair it.
Now the cost of repairs will be more than the cost of a new battery, so these devices are not used in amateur practice.
The most versatile battery monitoring device is a multimeter. How to use it to check the battery charge?
First, before driving with a cold engine, measure the voltage at the battery. It must be at least 12.5 volts. Turn on the ignition. In the normal case, the voltage will drop by 0.1 - 0.3 Volts, but it still needs to be at least 12.4 Volts to start the engine.
If the voltage is higher, the battery is being recharged. This is possible in the following cases:
- the generator is faulty (voltage regulator, diode bridge, short circuit of the excitation winding);
- battery capacity is lost (aging, boiling over, destruction of plates);
- violation in the battery charging control unit (if any).
If the voltage is less than 13.5 volts, this indicates that the charge is weak, the generator voltage regulator is not working properly, there may be problems with the wiring.
In the case when the voltage has not changed at all, on the contrary, it has decreased, it is necessary to check the generator or the wiring.
Using a multimeter, you can measure the charge current. To do this, disconnect the thick wire from the generator. Carefully insulate it (on it + batteries). Next, connect one multimeter probe to the freed contact of the generator, the other to the plus of the battery.
Switch the multimeter to the "current measurement" mode to the limit of 10 amperes. Start the engine. The charge current will initially be large (more than 5 amperes), then it will decrease as the battery is charged.
Checking the battery charge must be done at least once a month, and more often in winter. Indeed, at this time of the year, the safety of the driver and passengers depends on the correct operation of the battery.
