Left ignition on ?

[glgeek]

Greetings,

I must have bumped the key to on when i got off the tractor when I last blew out the driveway. Now the battery is dead. I brought it inside and it is connected to a 4 amp charger. The questions I have are:

-how long should I leave it on this charger. Heading to work in a couple hours and won't be back for 8 hours. I also have a battery tender at 1.5 amps. Maybe switch to it for the rest of the day?

-is there any damage I might have done by leaving the key on until the battery drained?

2012 x728

TIA

ba

 

[k0ua]

Put it on the 4 amp, and just before you leave for work put it on the battery tender. Leave it on until the light goes green on the battery tender. Did you damage it? Yes you did. Anytime you run a starting/accessory battery flat, you damaged its overall capacity by a little bit. Unlike trolling motor batteries, starting batteries are made to supply a large current for a few seconds, not a small current for a long time. Starting batteries should never be run flat. But what is done is done and there is not much you can do about it now. Good Luck.

James K0UA

 

[glgeek]

Thank you James.

How about the electrics of the tractor? Possibility of component damage?

thx

ba

 

[k0ua]

Thank you James.

How about the electrics of the tractor? Possibility of component damage?

thx

ba

Doubt it... I imagine the tractor is fine.

 

[Gary Fowler]

If the battery wasn't exposed to below freezing weather while completely discharged, you likely did minimal damage to it. I ran my 2007 Chevy truck battery completely dead 2 or 3 times from setting for months while I worked overseas and once when I left it hooked to my trailer with electric brakes for 2 days and it was so dead the ding ding bell wouldn't chime when I put the key in the ignition. I charged it back up letting it charge overnight (most chargers will shut off when the charge is complete unless you have a really cheap charger so leave it on 24 hours for a good charge) is not going to hurt it. The time my trailer brakes killed it, I was in a hurry to go pick up my Kubota from the shop, so I used my RTV to jump it off and just drove it about 25 miles letting the alternator charge it. It was fully loading the system all the way to the dealer but it cranked over good when I got there. It continued to charge to the max for about 10 miles on the way back and then it kicked back to normal rate of 14v. My original battery in my 2007 (bought it in fall of 2006)was finally changed out last summer and it was still cranking, just weakly so I decided to not take a chance on it conking out in the winter and put in a new one figuring that 7 years is plenty long for an OEM battery to last.

 

[glgeek]

Thank you for the replies.

It is still charging, has not gone to float yet. Charger working pretty hard.

Too cold to go move snow anyway, will let it run for a day.

Thanks again

ba

 

[glgeek]

thank you all.

battery charged up with no load voltage at 13.24

tractor started and ran fine

thx

ba

 

[jhonb]

I think back in the day, the issue with leaving your ignition on was that the points would burn out. But I think points are pretty much a thing of the past, even in lawn mower engines. Correct me if I am wrong

 

[RalphVa]

Battery on our diesel generator went down to 2.5 volts because battery tender went bad. It's a battery just less than 1 year old. Battery place said to put it on 12 amp charger (mine has 2 and 12 settings) over night. It did. New tender has been maintaining it at 13.62 volts for the last 3 weeks now.

Ralph

 

[gjw]

I am not sure if the hour meter works off the key or not but if it does you may have added a few more hours to the meter until the battery went dead. Might be a good excuse to trade sooner. (Honey look at all the hours we have on this - we need to trade!) :shocked: