meburdick

I have an 02 Edge X 500 that was ordered with E/S and Reverse. High miles, very well maintained, and everything works correctly.

I have one issue with it, and that is that the battery won't charge up correctly. I bought it last year from the original owner, and he stated that he and a relative with the same sled had the same issue - the battery was never good for more than a season.

I put it on a charger / maintainer, and it was holding up through last winter. After one of the couple of trips around the yard last winter (never went anywhere because of no snow), I put it back in the garage and didn't reconnect the maintainer.

In the late spring, when I went to start it, the battery was extremely weak and would only turn the motor a handful of times before it died. After running it a bit, I reconnected the maintainer and showed that it charged and the battery was good.

I disconnected the maintainer a month later when going to start it, and there wasn't much crank again.

It stayed this way until a couple of weeks ago when I reconnected the maintainer. After being connected for a while, it showed good battery and fully charged.

Tried cranking it two days ago with the key, zip.

I pulled the battery last night and visually inspected it. It appears to have proper fluid levels in all cells, but a voltage check on it shows 6.94VDC.

Questions:

- I have a full scale battery charger that is capable of both deep well (marine) and rapid charge of 12V batteries as well as longer trickle charges. Is there a possibility that charging with the bigger charger will bring this battery back?

- Why do the batteries keep going bad? Do I really stand a chance of having a battery last multiple seasons if I always use the maintainer? I have a solar-powered charger / maintainer that I'm seriously considering mounting to the clamshell and passing the wiring through the skin so that the sled is always on charge in the trailer.

Old Man

Sounds like your battery is sulfated. When a battery is stored and not used for a long period, it will slowly discharge and as this happens, lead sulfate builds up on the plates due to chemical reactions between the lead plate and sulfuric acid of the electrolite . Normal use or regular charging will reverse this reaction. If it's not used or recharge regularly, the coating of lead sulfate can get thick and solid enough that it becomes difficult for the battery to take a charge. It is possible to reclaim some sulfated batteries, but it can be a long and messy process. There's info online if you want to look for it. A healthy 12 volt battery should read around 13.5 volts after a charge. I use my sled enough through out the year that I don't worry about charging in season. In the off season, I remove the battery and keep it at my charging station. Through out the summer I throw it on a 2amp trickle charger for a few hours about once a month. My sled battery is 6 years old and still going strong.

meburdick

Battery desulfation appears to require some "special" equipment. Would I potentially have any luck by using the deep well charging cycle on my charger then attaching a small motor or something that could discharge the battery a bit?

Old Man

For the $50 or so bucks it will cost to buy a replacement, is it worth it? Also if it's the original factory battery, it's 10 years old. Not worth trying to save i IMHO.

RXL

I put a new battery in my RXL every year and it always ran great .. learned the hard way.

meburdick

$60 > $0. So, trying to save it is definitely worth it if I can do it without any investments.

And, as I mentioned in the first post... Original owner has put a new battery in every year. So, this one is two years old at this point. Again, definitely worth trying to save if it can be done at no cost.

I pulled the caps off of the cells and voltage checked each one. Three of the cells are very low voltage, but there is something there. The other three are down in the 1.00 - 1.25V range. The maintainer / charger that I had it connected to showed that it was "good", but only charged to a little under 7VDC. I'm wondering if the circuitry in the charger mistook this for a 6V battery and didn't try bringing the charge up to 13.5V.

I have the battery connected now to my larger 12V charger and I'm running a 6-hour, 2A charge on it to see what happens.

kccats

Get a Lawn Mower battery! $16 a year!

meburdick

I put the battery on a 2A charge four about 4 hours. Shut down the charger and tested the voltage and it showed about 9.5VDC. Put it back on the charger for another 3 hours or so, and the voltage shows 9VDC and drops fairly quickly as I hold the volt meter on it.

This battery went bad because the charge wasn't maintained. I doubt that I'll have any luck desulfating it without spending money to build or buy components to do it. I may try and leverage a sale this Christmas to get one for a decent discount. From what I remember, Wally World sells the appropriate size battery for my sled for about $54. I might see if I could get one on line for less.

RXL

I give..........

meburdick

Can definitely get them on line for less. Amazon has batteries for about $44 with no shipping and good reviews or one for $20 and $13.50 shipping with so-so reviews. Not sure which way I'll go here.

kccats

Just get a lawn mower battery at Walmart! Seriously!

meburdick

Which one fits in the well and has the right kind of terminals? I can get the L14 battery at Wally World for about $40.

2004polaris

i pulled my battery off my sled in the spring and kept it in my sheld all summer, put it back in my sled few weeks ago, no doubt it was dead so i fired the sled up with the pull cord and let it idle for 10 minutes and it charged the battery up just fine. try then see how it works.

meburdick

I have tried. Multiple times. Outlined all of it in detail in my posts.

Battery is not TAKING a charge, and will lose whatever charge it has beyond 6VDC quickly.

Kemo

Sounds like you have multiple cells that are dead (at least 2). Best thing to do, find a new one at this point. You should be able to get it tested at an auto parts store. But, as it stands, it doesn't sound like it'd pass at all.

meburdick

That's what I'm thinking too. I tested each cell directly. The first one showed a measurable voltage. The second, fourth, and sixth all increased the voltage slightly over the previous cell's reading, but only minimally. So, I presumed dead cells - especially since I didn't see any white corrosive appearance on any of the plates (indicating sulfation).

Kemo

A GOOD cell should measure 2.1 volts. You are better off just counting your losses on it at this point. (assuming there are dead cells)

meburdick

Sort of.. A Good, CHARGED cell should measure 2.1. If the cells are partly / mostly discharged, they will read much lower. It appears that I have three partially discharged and three mostly discharged cells. And, I can't get them to take a charge.

I have to check the battery again once it has been off of the charger for a few hours again. If it has settled right back down to 6.5VDC (or close), there are definitely three bad cells.

kccats

I used a piece of 3/4" plywood to fill the base and a Rubber bungie! And they have the same terninals.

meburdick

I'll give it a look. Thanks.