Higher Capacity Car Batteries

[TheLibran]

hi All,

I want to know is it possible technically to use a higher capacity battery(higher than factory fitted one) in car? What will be the disadvanges of doing this MOD?
Am asking this since I feel my car battery is feeding more than the factory fitted equipment :P (lots of related DIYs).

 

[TheLibran]

Friends, isn't there anyone who might have some details on this?

 

[Varun560061]

You can go for higher capacity of battery, 1st thing needs to be checked the capacity of the dynamo to charge the battery. These things are common in maruti, I have an 800, it had 32 amps now upgraded to 35 amps, since yours is an alto, by default it comes with 35 amps, check for 38 amps (might be of switft's battery)..

 

[freakdude]

Try sourcing a Optima Yellow Top Battery from Amaron. They have quite a juice to run high power ICE systems, HIDs, Fogs and all such stuff together. The only modification for adding such batteries is to see if your alternator is capable of charging the battery or else you would have to change the alternator.

BTW can you please share your requirement for a higher rated battery?

freakdude.

 

[racerdabba]

Agree with freakdude. What kind of DIY's are we talking here? Car electricals are designed to take extra loads in form of accesories. Even cars with heavy SPL systems run stock. So unless u have a really power hungry ride, u dont need one. If u are stiff on upgrading, a change of a few Amp/Hr wudnt harm.

 

[TheLibran]

Firstly thanks friends for your responses.
@Varun560061: I wanted this sort of info as well. Added into my brain now :)
@freakdude: Can you provide some details from where i can get "Optima Yellow Top Battery from Amaron." in Chandigarh?
and regarding "requirement for a higher rated battery" is that i noticed battery drainouts in past few months when the vehicle was not in use for some period of time and moreover the electricals/horns sometimes act as if the are not getting full power so i thought that might be because of load/DIYs its affected. I'll post the DIYs done in another post but not getting time for taking pics and doing so :(
@racerdabba:About the kind of DIYs i hope i alrady mentioned regarding that. And bro i dont understand what an SPL system is? Please let me know.

 

[Varun560061]

Please share the mods\electrical accessories added .
Also let me the issues faced so that we can help you out.

 

[kannan]

Anyone know the Alternator and battery rating of WagonR K10 i am experiencing dim lights and varying blower speeds when AC is turned on. i have changed
1. parking lamp
2. side indicator
3. HMSL (high mount stop lamp)
4. numberplate light
5. interior cabin light (both front and rear)
to LED (stock bulbs are each 5w and the cabin light is 10w i guess leds use ~0.5 w. all purchased from ebay, i saw many more on DX but i don't have credit card. i have requested many sellers from ebay to add more items from DX (i have noticed many of them selling items listed in DX).

M.A.S.S says that the Headlights dim when AC is on, it is normal since my rpm is very low (i am a slow driver stick to 50 in the top gear rpm stays just above 1.5k)

I am planning to get a battery for UPS, so if it doesn't void my warranty and if it is possible i would like to upgrade the battery and use the old one in UPS. pl comment

 

[ilango[speed thirst]]

head light will dim slightly due to the load on the alternator in idle.

yes driving helps! even a slightly above the idle rpm , everything will be normal. also check the charge in the battery

 

[Varun560061]

I am planning to get a battery for UPS, so if it doesn't void my warranty and if it is possible i would like to upgrade the battery and use the old one in UPS. pl comment

Hi Kannan, Pls check the amps of the battery before swapping, I guess wagon-r comes with 38 amps battery. If you want to put an higher rated (amps) battery,first check whether your car alternator is capable of charging it. I think the stock alternator in your car can produce 60-70 amps.

Sorry if I am wrong.

 

[kannan]

Hi Kannan, Pls check the amps of the battery before swapping, I guess wagon-r comes with 38 amps battery. If you want to put an higher rated (amps) battery,first check whether your car alternator is capable of charging it. I think the stock alternator in your car can produce 60-70 amps.

Sorry if I am wrong.

Thanks Varun. Can anyone confirm this is this mentioned in the user manual? i will give it a thorough check . I have a little time tough. because i haven't got the UPS yet. only have 2 500VA planning to get 850 (one of my friend has promised me one) or a big one capable of charging the battery,

 

[Varun560061]

Yes, you can find the battery rating in the user manual or just open the bonnet and just check on the battery ..

 

[alientech]

Its NOT amps but AmpHours. Which means how many hours it can provide 1AMP of power for. In this case that would be 38 hours. You can use larger capacity batteries but that means it wont be fully charged by default IE if you have extra load draining the smaller battery, a bigger battery will help since the drain is not all the time, But it also means the bigger battery might not get fully charged unless you run the engine long enough. I had a 120AH UPS battery connected to a UPS which by default only had a 7AH battery. Some problems cropped up, since my UPS would only charge the 7AH battery in 7 hours, it took over 120 hours to charge the bigger battery... The UPS would run for many hours and the UPS was not designed to be run full time all day on batteries and only last like an year compared to the 3 years normally.. You can get japanese batteries which have twice the capacity at the same size of chinese batteries. And if it fits its fine... I used to remove the battery and charge it using the UPS since the UPS charger will provide 10-15amps of charging and would charge a 50AH battery in like less than 5 hours. Inside the car itself it would have taken many days of driving to charge it.

You CANNOT use a car battery to run on a UPS however. Car batteries are designed to provide fast discharge, IE even a similarly rated UPS and CAR battery might be the same size. But a car battery wont provide enough juice over time a UPS battery would. They are designed differently. In a CAR the battery needs to provide that crank power to start the car while in a UPS it dont need the juice but needs to last over time when power is out as well as deep discharging.. Car batteries wont last if they are fully discharged like UPS batteries. You can start a car with your UPS 7AH small handheld batteries if you want, I used to do that when my car battery was dead. But I would not run the car on the UPS batteries as the large power draw during cranking would damage the USP batteries.. The heat generated during the cranking power draw would melt the lead and plastic on the UPS battery after a while.

Another problem is the battery drain even if no load is connected to it. A large battery like a 100AH battery would drain 1AH a day.. So in 3 months it would be fully dead.. So the charger needs to provide enough juice to get around this internal drain. A 10AH battery would only drain 1/10th that so the charger needs to provide much smaller juice to recharge it. Which is something else to keep in mind.

You can get battery chargers, which provide like 10-20amps to charge big batteries.. UPS's only provide 1 or 2 Amps which is not enough to charge large batteries, see above about internal drain.. Inverters have larger chargers providing 5-20 amps to charge larger batteries.. The UPS chargers use cleaner computer controlled cheap circuits.. Inverters use inefficient bulk circuits to keep costs down but provide higher power to charge but the power is unclean with spikes and such. I can run computer equipment from the UPS charger itself without using an AC adapter, would not try that from the car or inverter battery charger..

 

[freakdude]

Firstly thanks friends for your responses.
@Varun560061: I wanted this sort of info as well. Added into my brain now :)
@freakdude: Can you provide some details from where i can get "Optima Yellow Top Battery from Amaron." in Chandigarh?
and regarding "requirement for a higher rated battery" is that i noticed battery drainouts in past few months when the vehicle was not in use for some period of time and moreover the electricals/horns sometimes act as if the are not getting full power so i thought that might be because of load/DIYs its affected. I'll post the DIYs done in another post but not getting time for taking pics and doing so :(
@racerdabba:About the kind of DIYs i hope i alrady mentioned regarding that. And bro i dont understand what an SPL system is? Please let me know.

Sorry buddy, not much idea about Chandigarh automotive markets. Maybe fellow TAIns from the place can help you. Regarding the drain in battery when not using the car for some period might indicate lower electrolyte levels. Also, how old is your battery?

Anyone know the Alternator and battery rating of WagonR K10 i am experiencing dim lights and varying blower speeds when AC is turned on. i have changed
1. parking lamp
2. side indicator
3. HMSL (high mount stop lamp)
4. numberplate light
5. interior cabin light (both front and rear)
to LED (stock bulbs are each 5w and the cabin light is 10w i guess leds use ~0.5 w. all purchased from ebay, i saw many more on DX but i don't have credit card. i have requested many sellers from ebay to add more items from DX (i have noticed many of them selling items listed in DX).

M.A.S.S says that the Headlights dim when AC is on, it is normal since my rpm is very low (i am a slow driver stick to 50 in the top gear rpm stays just above 1.5k)

Buddy 1500 is a tad lower for being in the top gear. This is to some extent lugging. Also, maintaining such RPMs means lesser power for the alternator which in turn means lesser power for your car electricals and hence the dimming. I'd suggest keep the RPM a tad above around 1800 whenever possible.

freakdude.

 

[TheLibran]

Sorry buddy, not much idea about Chandigarh automotive markets. Maybe fellow TAIns from the place can help you. Regarding the drain in battery when not using the car for some period might indicate lower electrolyte levels. Also, how old is your battery?

Bro mine is the stock Amaron battery which is almost 2 years now. Its a sealed one so not sure (actually never checked) of electrolyte level; since this low battery sort of issue came when my car was parked for around 7-8 days without even starting.