"Bad Lead"?

bobdog

Not sure where to put this so I figured since this list might have the most battery users, then someone may have heard about this.

I recently got back from a fishing trip with my cousin and his boat, and they always take it by their mechanic to charge up the "deep cycle" batteries after a day on the lake. I've attempted to get them to purchase a very "tiny" (but adequate) solar charging system, but so far no luck. In any case, their mechanic was going off about some issue that companies are having with "Bad Lead" in batteries right now and so need to stay away from such and such a brand, yada, yada, yada...It was interesting because he was naming several brands that are "bad" and others that are "good", but they were manufactured in many cases by the same manufacturer. I don't want to get into an argument about which are better, verses not, and so forth. I'll just say he was contradicting himself.

So, not that I would've necessarily heard about such an issue, it wouldn't be front page news, but I sure was skeptical about what he was saying. I didn't want to get into a discussion without any facts to back my thoughts, because he's the type that "knows" it all. Plus, it wouldn't be fair to put my cousin in a weird spot.

So, I figured I'd just pop in here and find out if any of you have heard about any issues with battery manufacturing that's creating out of the norm issues with lead or anything else per se? I did a search on here and on the web and couldn't locate anything remotely related, but again figured y'all might know, if anyone would.

Thanks.

Bobdog

Mountain Don

An acquaintance had some issues with 4 Crown batteries. Several months ago, maybe as long a 6 months? Golf cart size I think. Anyhow he was having charging issues and finally found out there had been a recall at the dealer level. They changed the batteries for new ones and everything is fine now. It was something to do with the lead but I don't remember just what anymore.

waynefromnscanada

First I've ever heard of "bad lead",. but there may have been some problem with the manufacture of the plates, and rather than accept responsibility for making errors at the factory, they blame it on the lead.
Re the small solar panel, make sure it's big enough to get the battery recharged in a couple of days at most, so as to prevent sulphation hardening on the plates and murdering the battery. .

froggersix

the lead is an alloy so if some of it was made wrong it could be bad. but you gt bad batteries sometimes anyway.

BB.

With recycled lead (much of the lead used is recycled these days)--It would not be hard to believe that some undetected contaminant got in the recycling stream.

It does not take much of the "wrong" stuff to cause a battery to fail early in life.

http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/WP_EffectOfImpurities_0612.pdf

-Bill