Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian21401
Various posts on various threads mention calcium and antimony re batteries. The Lucas Classic and some Halfords batteries are apparently NON calcium and described as lead acid but how do we know that. All the batteries are lead acid. I’ve just had a browse in my local Halfords. Their calcium batteries are coded as HBC*** clearly marked as calcium, and their alternatives are coded HB*** lead acid and no mention of calcium. But other brands do not make it that obvious. My current Bosch battery silver 096 S5 008, which is now 5 years old, is marked as Silver, as was it’s predecessor, which lasted 12 years, but no indication as to whether there is calcium present. My current battery only shows 12.27 volts after standing overnight and sometimes less than that. I suspect that it is actually a calcium battery, but not marked as such. It still easily turns the engine over though. I’ve trawled around t’internet and have been unable to find any batteries marked as “non calcium” or “antimony” in their descriptions/specifications.
PS: I have a USB device, which also shows battery voltage, plugged into the cig lighter socket. I’ve compared it’s displayed voltage against the actual voltage at the battery whilst the engine is running and it is always 0.6 V less that the actual battery voltage. When driving it indicates a charge voltage of 13.1 or 13.2 so I presume that the alternator is providing 13.7 or 13.8. However, when the ignition is first switched on, prior to start up, it shows 11.9v or even less which would seem to indicate that the battery voltage is actually 12.5.
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Many good points there Ian - your Bosch Silver battery is Silver-Calcium and you must be one of the lucky ones that the battery has a lower concentration of silver-calcium than it should and consequently charges ok on 14.4V from your alternator - unless of course your alternator has been replaced with a later "smart" alternator.
As for the USB device, the calibration of those isn't great - i have two similar devices, one is a twin charging USB port with built-in voltmeter and the other is a combination voltmeter, clock and internal/external thermometer. Both are aftermarket items from Chinabay.
At 14.0V battery/system voltage, the latter of the two items reads 13.7-13.8V, at system voltage of 14.4V it reads 14.4V.
The other one can read anything up to 1V above the system voltage so i've seen it reading 16.1V but when the voltage drops to 13.7-13.8V, it's accurate - lower than that it shows 11.6 when the battery is showing 12.2V.
For reference, the former of these is on a system that charges at 14.4-14.0V and the latter on 15.1-14.7V, originally the latter was also 14.4-14.0V but i've boosted it to cope with the calcium battery that landed when i ordered a non-calcium variety.