Berlingo battery discharge rate

[Firestar]

Does anyone know what the discharge rate is if the Berlingo is left for any period of time between a charge. The manual seems to suggest that the charge will drop by a "few percent" if left for a few days - Can it be left for example a week if 80-100% charged and still have enough for a few miles (to get to a charging point say after leaving it to go on hols)?

Any advice would be helpful

Cheers!

[gwing]

Hi,

You will get some more informed data from folks that have had Blingo's for longer and gone through a holiday period, but I think that with good condition batteries you might no issue at all.
Being a new owner the longest I have so far left mine (without either using or recharging it) is 24 hours, but in that time there is zero perceptible drop in charge. If it is 100% charged and then left I would anticaipate the time taken to drop to say 30% to be measured in months rather than weeks.

Rob.

[ChrisB]

Having owned a Blingo for some 3 yrs now I've found that you'll lose about 1 or 2% per day, depending on condition of the 12v aux battery.

If the aux battery is in poor condition then the DC-DC convertor will need to kick in a fair amount which will pull the pack down quicker.

I've just been away for a week and I left with 90% and on my return it was at about 84% when I got back, then drove it about 7miles to about 68% before recharging.

If you leave it plugged in it seems to "top up" and it stays at 100%

Nicads inherently have a higher internal discharge rate when left alone, but then they also recover much better than any other battery I know, in fact a couple of test blocks Ive got here I've run totally flat, had shorting bars across them (once they had been discharged slowly) so they are at zero volts for many weeks then removed the bars and bench charged them and they appear to recover fully

They do need watering after this sort of thing mind you and I wouldnt recommend doing this in normal use.

Again if a set of Blingo units are left in a complete flat state then it would be advisable to carry out a equalistation charge at the very least before putting back into use, better to do a maint charge and watering, then carefully carry out a few gentle discharge runs before expecting them to deliver full output.

EVan might have further info on them as well.

ChrisB

[gwing]

Thanks for the info Chris, the discharge rate is a bit higher than I guessed it would be but still should give us two to three months of parking time before we get seriously low - if its linear.

Picking up on your comment about the condition of the auxiliary battery, and previous threads which mentioned these have a short life due to under charging, I wondered if there might be ways of fixing this. Specifically I considered wiring a tiny 'maintenance charger' permanently to the aux battery such that whenever we connect to 240v for main battery charging the aux battery also gets boosted to full charge. At the moment its only an idle thought and I haven't any information on how the vehicles electrics would react to doing such a thing - is it anything that has been tried or considered before?

Rob.

[EVan]

Thanks for the info Chris, the discharge rate is a bit higher than I guessed it would be but still should give us two to three months of parking time before we get seriously low - if its linear.

That's a bit optimistic IMHO. Maybe if you disconnect the traction pack fuse and the 12V battery when you park it. A few miles should be OK but I'd go easy.
The evLite manual has a bit of info on breaking them back in gently (as Chris mentioned).

Picking up on your comment about the condition of the auxiliary battery, and previous threads which mentioned these have a short life due to under charging, I wondered if there might be ways of fixing this. Specifically I considered wiring a tiny 'maintenance charger' permanently to the aux battery such that whenever we connect to 240v for main battery charging the aux battery also gets boosted to full charge.

The battery is floated at over 14V whilst charging (too high if anything). I previously thought it was much lower than this but was mistaken, that may have been where you got the undercharged comment from.

[gwing]

The battery is floated at over 14V whilst charging (too high if anything). I previously thought it was much lower than this but was mistaken, that may have been where you got the undercharged comment from.

I may have got it from the thread http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk ... hlight=12v where this was discussed. rereading this more carefully I see the vehicles needing annual auxiliary battery changes were not Blingo's.

In my defense I read a lot of material very quickly when I became interested in getting one and evidently picked up the wrong impression on that one

[ChrisB]

That's a bit optimistic IMHO. Maybe if you disconnect the traction pack fuse and the 12V battery when you park it. A few miles should be OK but I'd go easy.

That actually is the best way to go I recon, forgot to mention that option, thanks EVan

Although over long periods do you think it might upset the "Energy" meter a little, mind you a couple of cycles and it would re-sync with the pack I'd suspect.

ChrisB

[EVan]

Although over long periods do you think it might upset the "Energy" meter a little, mind you a couple of cycles and it would re-sync with the pack I'd suspect.

I wouldn't rely on the energy meter anyway after that long a wait, you'd need to watch the voltage instead. It will correct itself at the next charge.

[ChrisB]

........... It will correct itself at the next charge.

I've found it takes several cycles to sort itself out when I've got mine in a pickle

As you say voltage is the key thing.

ChrisB

[EVan]

........... It will correct itself at the next charge.

I've found it takes several cycles to sort itself out when I've got mine in a pickle

If the battery is flatter than the meter thinks (as it would be if you left it disconnected), then the meter will simply reach 100% too early, but once the charger has finished, that's it matched up.

The other way around, yes, you can end up with it taking several cycles to catch up.