RE: more on batteries

[Eliot Lim <eliot@u.washington.edu>]

On Wed, 14 Dec 1994, Michael Moy, Oracle SQL Engineering, 603-881-1943 14-Dec-1994 1629 wrote:

>I bought a charger several years ago in
> case one of the cars wouldn't start in the morning and have used it a few
> times.
> 
> I've never used it to top off the battery. 
>Do you do this regularly, like once
> a week or once a month?


the v8 does not do the engine-off-fan-on trick.. i suspect that this
is due to the fact that it has an alloy block which would
expand/contract at the same rate as the heads.. this car is very
undemanding in terms of needing top offs.. (having one engine driven
fan also helps). i give it a couple of hours worth of 2A charge every
few weeks.. i usually pull the plug when i see the battery pulling
very low amps.

the corrado, OTOH, is a beast in the summer, esp if you use A/C...
only my ex-4000Q is worse..  the corrado, in addition to the fan will
also start up the electric fuel pump to circulate fuel to prevent
vapor lock.. nice, except for the extraordinary demands placed on the
moderate sized battery.  i religiously plug this car into the charger
after every drive if it's anything higher than 70F outside... when
the fan and fuel pump come on, they are powered by my home's 110V AC
supply... :)

i bought this car used when it was 1yr old.. the original battery
died shortly after i bought it..  the replacement battery is in
a as good as new shape as a result of my fanaticsm in keeping it
topped up.  the charging system copes really well in the winter..
to date it has not needed any topping off.  (because the charger
ammeter immediately shoots down to "fully charged" when i plug
it in) 

hope this helps.


eliot