DiscoGeorge
"Thrown Off". A most inappropriate turn-of-phrase to use in the motorcycling world. The last and only time that happen to me was December 21st 1973. Gear lever impaled through the ankle - surgeon save my foot - miserable Christmas in hospital.

athelstan wrote:

DiscoGeorge
"Thrown Off". A most inappropriate turn-of-phrase to use in the motorcycling world. The last and only time that happen to me was December 21st 1973. Gear lever impaled through the ankle - surgeon save my foot - miserable Christmas in hospital.

Hi Athelstan

glad to read that you made a full recovery from that one. Enjoy your skiing. I will have to wait until after Christmas, when we will be in the Engadin for some snow fun. (For once in a while a cold Christmas)  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff

An old thread but important if you are heading offroad for a while. I put a multimeter on the new SD4 battery and was shocked to see only 13.9 volts under charge. Somewhere Lower than optimal charge rates prematurely ruin batteries. This is fine if you can call a local shop or borrow the neighbors car and money grows on trees. Not so cool when you are in the middle of nowhere and mobile phones don't work. Secondary batteries are commonplace with 4WD campers on Oz. For vehicles where there's insufficient space under the bonnet, most alternative batteries are stored in the back of vehicles (sealed only of course!), camper trailers or wait for it, caravans. Over 7 or 8 meters, voltage drop occurs and a charge rate of 13.9 at the alternator drops even further - to a point where the second battery barely gets charged at all and therefore struggles as an effective starter back-up if the main fails. With all the effing electronics in this vehicle, I would have thought it would be better equipped. Does anyone have specific info on the alternator (MY11)? I would also like clarification on whether the more modern 4-7 stage 'smart chargers' adversely affect the electronics of the FL2 if the battery cables are left connected (what a pain to disconnect battery cables regularly!)?

jaksbak@freel2 wrote:

An old thread but important if you are heading offroad for a while. I put a multimeter on the new SD4 battery and was shocked to see only 13.9 volts under charge. Somewhere Lower than optimal charge rates prematurely ruin batteries. This is fine if you can call a local shop or borrow the neighbors car and money grows on trees. Not so cool when you are in the middle of nowhere and mobile phones don't work. Secondary batteries are commonplace with 4WD campers on Oz. For vehicles where there's insufficient space under the bonnet, most alternative batteries are stored in the back of vehicles (sealed only of course!), camper trailers or wait for it, caravans. Over 7 or 8 meters, voltage drop occurs and a charge rate of 13.9 at the alternator drops even further - to a point where the second battery barely gets charged at all and therefore struggles as an effective starter back-up if the main fails. With all the effing electronics in this vehicle, I would have thought it would be better equipped. Does anyone have specific info on the alternator (MY11)? I would also like clarification on whether the more modern 4-7 stage 'smart chargers' adversely affect the electronics of the FL2 if the battery cables are left connected (what a pain to disconnect battery cables regularly!)?

Hi Jaks

get yourself a CTEK D250S 12 > 12DC charger. It is actually an inverter-charger and will keep that second battery in tiptop shape. On all your cars, you should fully charge batteries once every 6 weeks in summer or warm climates and every 4 weeks in winter or cold climates.

Your ideal equipment would be:

1 X XS4003 or XS7000 for the main batteries and a D250S for the caravan or off-road trailer.  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff

Will the "smart regenerative charging" noe used affect the voltage at idle and increase it when it is efficient to do so?
This may be the cause of the low reading during idle?

have looked at the price of the charger....sod that

Hi taztastic

an alternator - by design - is putting out charge voltage (max 13.8V) at just above idle. That is why these were such a big improvement over the old generators. I have a 1958 Porsche 356A with 6V system. There the intensity of the lights is dependent on engine revs. Anything below 2000rpm is affecting charge voltage.

The CTEK D250S is meant for 2nd battery systems to ensure, that there is always sufficient capapity to keep the fridges running.  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff

DiscoGeorge. Thanks for the advice. I very nearly bought a CTEK charger (great reputation) but found that "Projecta" had an R&D team based here in Australia and were unbelievably helpful - responded to my e-mail queries within a few hours and tested my theories in their lab if they didn't know the answers - brilliant really.
I 'carefully' disconnected the battery this afternoon and put the 8amp smart charger on, though I only set it to 4amps max. For a new battery supposedly charged by the FL2 alternator, it sucked up a lot of juice. 4 Hrs later, the charging amps were down from 4 to 1 but the voltage was still up at 14.4 suggesting it hadn't even got to stage 3 yet. Unfortunately, it was dark, late and the alarms de-activated so I pulled the plug so to speak. Whilst I understand there are no true meters to determine battery "fullness" (eg: 80% versus 100%), it was clear that this new battery was far from 100%. I'm still trying to track down the details on the regulator and the alternator to better manage the main starter battery. Interestingly, more recent Toyotas have been having battery troubles here and it turns out the alternators were underdone (13.9v). The response from Toyota (as I'm told) was that as long as the batteries lasted the length of the 2 year warranty period, the alternators were just fine! Strangely enough, Toyotas weren't selling in the outback like they once were, so Toyota re-launched their old, stable, reliable system called the 70's series. Making a comeback now.

Just another thought - I was of the opinion that new FL2's since the launch of the TD4-e had an upgraded alternator and battery management system due to the loads applied from constant cranking in city traffic. Does anyone know if it became universal across the variants, or remains unique to the Stop/Start models?

jaksbak@freel2 wrote:

DiscoGeorge. Thanks for the advice. I very nearly bought a CTEK charger (great reputation) but found that "Projecta" had an R&D team based here in Australia and were unbelievably helpful - responded to my e-mail queries within a few hours and tested my theories in their lab if they didn't know the answers - brilliant really.
I 'carefully' disconnected the battery this afternoon and put the 8amp smart charger on, though I only set it to 4amps max. For a new battery supposedly charged by the FL2 alternator, it sucked up a lot of juice. 4 Hrs later, the charging amps were down from 4 to 1 but the voltage was still up at 14.4 suggesting it hadn't even got to stage 3 yet. Unfortunately, it was dark, late and the alarms de-activated so I pulled the plug so to speak. Whilst I understand there are no true meters to determine battery "fullness" (eg: 80% versus 100%), it was clear that this new battery was far from 100%. I'm still trying to track down the details on the regulator and the alternator to better manage the main starter battery. Interestingly, more recent Toyotas have been having battery troubles here and it turns out the alternators were underdone (13.9v). The response from Toyota (as I'm told) was that as long as the batteries lasted the length of the 2 year warranty period, the alternators were just fine! Strangely enough, Toyotas weren't selling in the outback like they once were, so Toyota re-launched their old, stable, reliable system called the 70's series. Making a comeback now.

Hi Jaksbak

your observations are some of the more credible information that I have read on this forum.

Just accept that you cannot fully charge a battery with the alternator in the car. There have been heated debates on this forum about this. In the late 1980's I was involved with one of the luxury german car manufacturers to educate the dealer workshop personnel to that fact. This was as a result of to many top end luxury class models getting stuck with flat batteries within two weeks of new car deliveries. So yes I do know quite a bit about this subject.

You should aim to charge all your vehicles batteries every 6 weeks in summer and every 4 weeks in winter and you will be fine.  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff

The generator's parameters on FL2 are driven directly by the engine ECU over the LIN bus.

The engine ECU takes into account, among other parameters, the temperature in the engine bay area (using the intake air temperature, before turbo, as reference) and therefore the battery temperature and tune the charging voltage/current accordingly.

For example, I have a voltmeter (part of my home made clinometer) permanently connected on the battery.
These days, when I start the engine at aprox. 15 degrees Celsius, the voltage kept on the battery is about 14.4-14.5 volts. As time passes and the engine bay/battery temperature rise, the voltage on the battery drops slowly to about 14.1-14.2 volts. After an intense off-road session when temperature in engine bay is very high, the voltage on the battery drops to almost 13.8-13.9 volts.

alex_pescaru wrote:

The generator's parameters on FL2 are driven directly by the engine ECU over the LIN bus.

The engine ECU takes into account, among other parameters, the temperature in the engine bay area (using the intake air temperature, before turbo, as reference) and therefore the battery temperature and tune the charging voltage/current accordingly.

For example, I have a voltmeter (part of my home made clinometer) permanently connected on the battery.
These days, when I start the engine at aprox. 15 degrees Celsius, the voltage kept on the battery is about 14.4-14.5 volts. As time passes and the engine bay/battery temperature rise, the voltage on the battery drops slowly to about 14.1-14.2 volts. After an intense off-road session when temperature in engine bay is very high, the voltage on the battery drops to almost 13.8-13.9 volts.

Hi Alex

there are two issues with the charging of batteries. Voltage and amperage. This is one of the main reasons, why batteries cannot be fully charged, when installed in the car  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff

Yes, I know, but also the charging is/must be temperature dependant.
And I tried to point out that, fortunately, the FL2 charging system takes this into account, in order not to do more harm/damage than good...
Therefore a voltage of 13.8 wont be something unusual in certain conditions.

Hi Alex. Very interesting. The variation according to temperature is a good thing to avoid cooking batteries but given I only recorded 13.9v after a cold start, I might have to do a bit more monitoring. My understanding is that the new MY11 models are supposed to be more conservative on fuel and one of the reasons is regenerative braking, which uses the braking process to recharge the battery rather than put a load on the motor (via the alternator) during acceleration. Is this correct and would it therefore affect the charging voltage at start up??? It is very confusing as I thought braking generated kinetic energy and I wouldn't have a clue how this is converted into electrical energy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_brake
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Imediately after start up the voltage could be low. Give it a few minutes.
But if it stays at 13.9, it could be a problem.
First thought will be to try with a different correctly calibrated voltmeter.

As for the temperature, the theory says that the charging voltage needs to be raised as temperature falls to ensure that the battery continues to accept charge. The appropriate temperature coefficient for the raised voltage is around 4 mV per degree C per cell. So for a 12 volt battery, the charging voltage should be raised by 24 millivolts for every degree C that the temperature falls. Similarly, at higher temperature, the charging voltage needs to be reduced to prevent excessive gassing due to overcharge. Overcharge consumes electrolyte and can dramatically reduce the life of some types of battery, in particular recombinant types (so called sealed batteries).

Click image to enlarge

alex_pescaru wrote:

Imediately after start up the voltage could be low. Give it a few minutes.
But if it stays at 13.9, it could be a problem.
First thought will be to try with a different correctly calibrated voltmeter.

As for the temperature, the theory says that the charging voltage needs to be raised as temperature falls to ensure that the battery continues to accept charge. The appropriate temperature coefficient for the raised voltage is around 4 mV per degree C per cell. So for a 12 volt battery, the charging voltage should be raised by 24 millivolts for every degree C that the temperature falls. Similarly, at higher temperature, the charging voltage needs to be reduced to prevent excessive gassing due to overcharge. Overcharge consumes electrolyte and can dramatically reduce the life of some types of battery, in particular recombinant types (so called sealed batteries).

Click image to enlarge

And that is precisely why your cars battery needs to be periodically fully charged.

One of the most sophisticated charging systems currently is to be found on the Bentley Continental GT (BY614). We got a CTEK battery monitoring system in the one in our fleet and every time that car comes back from a one week european trip, the LHD side battery, the one for all the electronics, needs a 6-7 hour charge with the CTEK XS7000 (the big consumer one). So there you have it.

To prevent unforseen mishaps, get into the routine to fully charge the cars battery(s) once every 6 weeks in summer and once every 4 weeks in winter.

The old fairy tale "you just have to drive around and the battery will be charged again" just doesn't hold true. It is about equally effective as taking a smarties as a contraceptive pill  With kind regards
DiscoGeorge
1998 Disco1 ES 300Tdi with twin TrueTracs
2005 Disco3 TDV6 S
And some more serious stuff