jrjava / inwo / oldhouseboater,
I’ve put roughly 10 miles on the Gem over the past few days. It has not gone under 70% and I’ve always plugged charger in even after a quick run (%95+). I have not checked the water on the 31DCM’s yet. What kind of schedule have you guys noticed, check every 30 days still a good interval at least for awhile? Did you have to add any water directly from store to vehicle? Guy at O’Reillys said they come full and to check it Aug 1st then spread schedule out as I learn the battery patterns.
Replaced 2 burnt 3amp fuses and 1 10amp fuse under the hood and now neither blinker works. Horn and lights work. Guess I inadvertently fried the blinker fuse. Will update after I install a new one. Does the seatbelt light ever go out? I assume I have a seatbelt sensor out (only goes off a few seconds after key goes off).
Thanks again everyone for all the help. The quality of folks in this community is amazing!
I put ORilleys 31DCM’s in all my rebuilds and run 7 of them in my cart. I have purchased 43 of them over the past 5 years. At 96 bucks ( plus I get a 10% veterans discount) It’s the best deal out there. These are built by East Penn (Deka) a Top.Notch battery manufacture.
Note 31DCMJ is NOT the same battery and is NOT sold as Deep Cycle.
How quickly does the distilled water evaporate for you in your experience?
Plugging in the charger at anything at or above 85-90% is just going to hurt the flooded batteries in the long run. IIRC, Deka advises not charging until it drops to 75%. I try to time it so that I catch it around 60%, as it falls fast after that point. I avoid charging if above 80% if at all possible. Occasionally, if I know I’m going to be putting a lot of miles on the next day I’ll go drive around with the pedal floored to run them down a bit. Running these types of batteries below 40% can damage them.
You want about a 1/4" of acid over the plates. How often you have to check and add water is dependent on your usage, charging cycle, climate, etc. I’ve had this set of NAPA 8231 (exactly the same battery as the 31DCM) for 3 months and just shy of 500 miles and have yet to need to add water to them.
I top mine off about every 6 weeks. About 200 miles a month.
Noted. Will check every month for a while then and increase check time as needed. 40% to 80% for recharges, also noted. Thanks a bunch!
I wouldn’t aim for 40%. It’s not linear.
You might get 15-17 miles and only go down to 75% but the next 1-2 miles will take you to 60%. There is a point where it starts to fall very fast.
The good news is, that aside from running them without water, FLA batteries are very durable and can take a lot of abuse. It’s not like the battery is going to die the instant you cross south of 40%. It takes multiple times doing that to muck stuff up.
Oh, and if you pack the car up for the winter, get a heavy duty timer, plug the charger into it and have it turn on for 10 hours once every 12 days (right around there), because if the batteries sit for long periods without being cycled, they can sustain some damage that way too.
Good to know. Hopefully I don’t ever run them dry, sounds alot like the house sediment filter and the AC filters that are easily forgotten about. 
Jr,
Can you point me too where Deka says not to charge the batteries at 85 -90% ? This is not my understanding at all . I thought La batteries should prefer to be fully charged all the time . Sulfation starts a 12.4v , I think that is about 80% soc . If Deka suggests not charging until below a certain soc i would like to educate myself on this .
Now for lithium fully charged is a bad thing . Lithium prefers to be kept at a lower soc and to be charged to about 90% soc max.
The 85-90 % is tied to the overall number of charge cycles a battery is good for. I’ll look for the graph and notes later, but if you’re above 90, it’s still a charge cycle. Basically the same as say 80%. Deeper discharges lower the count faster, but Cclassic example is the person who drives 2 miles round trip and plugs it in every time. Couple years later, battery is shot, won’t hold a charge anymore, but never really did any work.
The 75% is exactly like you said, that’s the point where sulfide starts forming and so you want to charge it to prevent or minimize that. I probably phrased my earlier comment poorly on that.
For sunman’s benefit, when I say I’m leaving the vehicle with a partial charge to run it down a bit further before charging, I’m talking about leaving it overnight. I have to charge mine every other day. I run 6 to 14 miles a day on the average when in using it. I wouldn’t leave it sit for a week or even weekend that way. I treat my machinery (forklift, scissor lift & motorized pallet jacks) at work the same way and manage to squeak a few extra years out if the batteries. Or, in the case of the forklift, a lot of extra years.
Off tangent… “jrjava” was something a random name generator spit out when I was registering. I hardly drink coffee anymore these days. Lol
What Delta Q algorithm do y’all use for Duracell SLI31MDC batteries? Mine is currently set on 14 but Im guessing 62 will be better from the chart… I just got new batts and want them to last.
Found it in an earlier thread - Profile 32 for the Duracells.
So I looked at the water levels of my new Duracells and I let the old ones get like an inch low. I also had the delta Q charger on the wrong profile (14 instead of 32) and I was charging it every time I drove around the block. Ill keep you updated on how long these $700 Duracells last with proper maintenance (check water monthly), correct charge profile and not over cycling them. The last ones lasted 2.5 years.
I drive 2 miles round trip daily mostly.
