Thread: A public service announcement.... How to kill a nice new SLA battery

I had 2 solar powered spotlights that are activated by motion detectors eventually die after some 20 months partly due to being activated too often by other than human activity and days of low charging during winter.

The original batteries were only 6V 1 Amp but the new ones are 6V 4 Amp so apart from minimising moving objects to falsely trigger the lights, I am hoping this larger capacity will also reduce the chances of going flat too quickly.

Like all batteries, you leave a draw on them too long too often, they sure is gunna die !!!

Originally Posted by astrodog73

Turn on some lights powered by it, then forget about it overnight, until open circuit voltage is down to 8.5V.... It was fairly new (about 4-6 months old) and used little, and solar charged daily. Wouldn't charge above 11V after it was flattened.... Funny thing was it was quite new because I killed one similarly 4-6 months ago. :|
Lee

8.5 volts is way way beyond flat. You could try a pulse charger to bring it back to life.
Or use a voltage sensitive relay to disconnect loads when your battery goes under a preset voltage, say 12.4volts.

I bought one of those supposedly Voltage cut offs that plug into a cars ciggy socket, I never tried it out to see if it lived up to its claim of disconnecting the load before the battery went dead so I dont know if that be of use to you in this instance.