TIL - Today I Learned...

[oj88]

Kaya pala umubos ng battery ang car stereo???


Having nothing much to do yesterday, I decided to wash and wax the cars in the garage. Sobrang tahimik, parang pandemic lockdown yung buong paligid due to the Lent season so after the 2rd car, I opened the doors of the car sa dulo ng garage and turned on the stereo to play my favorite soundtracks at a moderate volume while I worked on the remaining vehicles.

After finishing the last car mga 2-3 hours later, I switched off the stereo. For some reason, I checked the battery voltage (cigarette plug type, not multi tester) and was surprised the remaining voltage left was 12.2!!!

Ganyan na pala kalakas kumain ng battery ang mga stereo ngayon? In the old days, I was taught by the Banaue boys that hindi kaya umubos ng battery yan- these were the days na wala pang mga CPU & fancy electricals ang mga sasakyan. Also, confident ako hindi ma-drain because it was a brand new, 3 day old Amaron NS60 battery that I charged in full to 12.8v after I installed it. Mind you, walang amp & woofer setup etc., just the typical stock 25W 2 speaker stereo system lang and stock touch screen head unit kasi yun lang yung naka install sa kotse sa dulo. Hindi nga lang naka pihit yung ignition to ACC setting only when I switched it on though, but all the way to on (but engine not running of course, ma carbon monoxide poisoning ako). I wonder if that had something to do with it?

Mabuti na lang I checked the voltage kaya I was able to immediately hook it up to my battery maintainer bago siya ma damage. Yun pa naman yung nakaharang sa gate ng garage so I wouldn't be able to get any cars out if it didn't start na after the holidays. Kaya pa naman maka start ng kotse ang 12.2V but still...

Ganyan na pala mga kotse ngayon?

To be fair, the NS60 is a tiny 45Ah battery with 360CCA and an RC of about 75 minutes... when it was new. But it also depends on the load. The 12.2V you read immediately after turning off the radio will rebound back to a higher resting voltage after about 30-60 minutes. Suffice to say, if the battery is healthy, you should still have plenty of CCAs to start it. But if you're not going to use the vehicle, it was a good idea to recharge it immediately as lead-acid batteries prefer being topped up and kept at the proper float voltage.

When the stock Motolite LN3/DIN66 in my vehicle died, I chose to replace it with a bigger 3SM/130D31L battery, even if it needed minor modifications to the battery compartment (longer hold-down rods).

Comparing DIN66 → 3SM, I went from:
65 → 130 Ah
582 → 920 CCA
120 → 175 RC (mins.)
... but cost me only around just 2/3 the price.

Motolite Gold LN3/DIN66 costs around 10k.
Mega Force Plus 3SM cost me just a little under 6k, as of early this year.

They seem to be artificially inflating the price of DIN type batteries for whatever reason. Probably it's more in-demand?