Batteries!!

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lauren123

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2007
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East Yorkshire
You're all a knowledgeable bunch, unlike lovely me. lol:D:p
I bought a brand new leisure battery in the summer so come winter I could run 3 LED strip lights two for soxs stable and one for my tack room. To start of with everything was brilliant the lights were fab and the only times they were really on was to show them to people. Or if we had a yard night ( long hack followed by takeaway) we used by stable due to the lighting. It worked really well for a good... number of weeks if not months. However recently I noticed the lights weren't as bright and very dim. So thought I would charge it up.
My lovely granddad allowed me to borrow his charger... however it didn't seem to work that well and after 2 days on charge the battery was still the same.:(:mad: So I took it to my YO he had a charger and we put it on overnight and the following day. Afterwards worked fab! However that was I would say no more then a week ago and the lights are already going very dim again :( The battery is a 12v) and I only use it at night max 2 hours. Would it just need another charge?? The lights were brand new aswell. Any advice?:(
 
It might be that your battery got too low, once they get passed a certain point they won't hold a charge so well, I think it depends too on how they get charged back up, my OH would know but he's not here just now. Maybe @Jessey will suggest something.
 
@Kite_Rider is quite correct. Do you have a dedicated shop that does batteries near you. You can take the battery to them and they will test it for you. We have lots of batteries for our different electric fence units. We have messed up a few batteries over the years by letting them get to low. Is like you the not knowing can mess them up. They are better to be charged/topped up perhaps once a month.
 
Does your dad have a multimeter? (little box with a red and black wire on to test electrical things) if you can borrow one I can talk you through testing the battery, its very easy. Anything that tells you the voltage will work, for ease on my fence battery I brought a little voltage display on ebay for about 2 quid, its just a little LED display with a red wire and a black wire and I just clip it under the fence clips onto the battery so I can always keep an eye on it.

If you know the specs of your set up we can calculate how many hours your battery should last for, we would need to know the Amp hours of your battery (XX Ah is normally on the battery) and the current your lights need to work, normally give in watts but if you are lucky it will be in amps.

The easiest answer if your battery is near a south or south east facing outside area would be to stick a solar charger on it, to keep it topped up :)
 
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This is not horse related. But about a plant. My most cherished bougainvilia in a pot has now grown too big for our living room or for OH to bring it indoors. He loves then too as he worked in Africa.

I read on line that outdoor Christmas lights hung over a tender plant generate enough heat to keep the plant alive but we have no outdoor power socket. And I told OH that people here used batteries for lighting and fencing and understand them.

To my surpsie lots of places sell battery driven outdoor lights. The cheaper ones run on 3 AA batteries but no one says how long those batteries might last.
No that is not true. I have just found a website which estimates 180 hours. Switching on 6 hours overnight that would be a month.
Some more expensive light sets require a D battery box but I am finding it very hard.
And modern low energy bulbs might not give out enough heat to make a difference.
Ikea have some which are solar powered but would these work in a UK winter?

Do any of you battery users have any suggestions or advice please?

We are in London with a small courtyard garden that keeps high temperature and one of our neighbours left her plant out one winter and it survived. When I tried, I failed. I have lagged the pot with horticultural fleece, but have failed with this in the past when trying to wrap the entire plant as the fleece absorbs water and the plant goes mouldy.
 
We have move off the Leisure batteries to solar energisers for the fields - reportedly will work for 3 weeks if no sun to power them up, not had that yet but even In winter we tend to only go a few days without any daylight strong enough to give some top up , we also use the small solar powered strip lights for the field shelters and hay store which don't have electric to them, had them a few years no problems to report at all, works fine for us, other than if a Shetland gets hold of the panel and uses it as a frisbee!
any torches I have are rechargeable , saves a fortune.
 
Skib said:
This is not horse related. But about a plant. My most cherished bougainvilia in a pot has now grown too big for our living room or for OH to bring it indoors. He loves then too as he worked in Africa.

I read on line that outdoor Christmas lights hung over a tender plant generate enough heat to keep the plant alive but we have no outdoor power socket. And I told OH that people here used batteries for lighting and fencing and understand them.

To my surpsie lots of places sell battery driven outdoor lights. The cheaper ones run on 3 AA batteries but no one says how long those batteries might last.
No that is not true. I have just found a website which estimates 180 hours. Switching on 6 hours overnight that would be a month.
Some more expensive light sets require a D battery box but I am finding it very hard.
And modern low energy bulbs might not give out enough heat to make a difference.
Ikea have some which are solar powered but would these work in a UK winter?

Do any of you battery users have any suggestions or advice please?

We are in London with a small courtyard garden that keeps high temperature and one of our neighbours left her plant out one winter and it survived. When I tried, I failed. I have lagged the pot with horticultural fleece, but have failed with this in the past when trying to wrap the entire plant as the fleece absorbs water and the plant goes mouldy.
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Most of the lights available now are led ones, the reason they don't take much power is that they are very efficient and waste little energy as heat so I doubt they would do much in terms of keeping a plant warm, could you look at a small greenhouse instead? My brother has success with the plastic ones that zip over a small frame.
 
Jessey said:
Most of the lights available now are led ones, the reason they don't take much power is that they are very efficient and waste little energy as heat so I doubt they would do much in terms of keeping a plant warm, could you look at a small greenhouse instead? My brother has success with the plastic ones that zip over a small frame.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea, I think they look very useful, I'm considering one to put down the side of the pig barn where it's sheltered in spring.
 
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Thank you very much to everyone who answered my gardening question. The info has been invaluable.
I had already bought a largish plastic plant cover to pop over it if snow comes. In our paved yard one of those greenhouse things isnt a good bet as things in our garden tend to blow over in winter even the barbecue under its cover and large container pots.
It is still in leaf at the moment and as Jane showed with her pic of a primrose, down here we have Spring flowers coming out. Seasons have gone mad.
 
@Skib I would wrap the plant pot in bubble wrap and pop a waterproof cover over the top of the plant, making sure that air can circulate. Put the pot on the side of the courtyard which is most sheltered from rain. It isn’t the cold which kills many mediterranean plants it is the cold + wet, so keep it fairly dry. I pop a cover over my agapanthus and a few other things that are now too heavy to move. Bubble wrap stops the roots freezing, which they are prone to in pots. I’m in wet west Wales near the coast, so we don’t gererally get huge frosts, but the wet really is a pain.
 
Thanks taffie - was working today but will do as we have bubble wrap. I dont water my containers in winter tho need to keep a close eye next Spring as I managed to kill a nice sedge
 
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