Knowledge Base Archives

Everstart Battery Cross Reference

In this post you’ll be find powerful replacement batteries for your original Everstart battery.

We have sold batteries replacing the Everstart brand for many years.  Our recommendations come from our experience working with customers online and in our stores to get their vehicles back on the road.

Please be sure to review the replacement battery for terminal polarity, dimensions, and cranking power to ensure that the replacement options will work in your specific application. Battery manufacturers do change specifications without notice, so we always recommend comparing any replacement against your original battery.

Select your Everstart battery below:

Off-Season Battery Maintenance and Charging

Batteries periodically need exercising and maintenance to prevent sulphation from building up on the battery plates. Batteries that sit unused for a long period of time (longer than four weeks) need a maintainer.

Consider a water fountain in the middle of a cold winter. The water freezes because it sits dormant. Running water never freezes because the molecules are always in motion.

The same is true for your batteries. Maintaining the battery keeps the molecules in motion. When maintained, sulphation won’t rear its ugly head (just like the ice in a flowing fountain).

Battery Sulphation

Once the plates become sulphated, the battery sees a reduction of run time or starting capabilities that worsen with time.

Other problems can occur when trying to charge a sulphated battery. While the charger tries to charge the battery, the battery plates do not accept the charge. The charger stays in constant charge mode and can overcharge a battery, which will cause it to swell or burst. Automatic chargers will only shut off once it sees the battery is fully charged. In other cases, the battery voltage is so low the charger cannot read the battery and thus goes straight into its float/trickle mode without doing anything to the battery.

Choosing the Correct Maintainer

The type of battery determines what charger/maintainer to use.

For example, a standard starting battery in most cars, any 1 to 3 amp fully automatic unit will work fine for maintaining throughout the winter.

Choosing the correct charger/maintainer depends on the amp hour or reserve capacity of the battery and whether you want to charge or just maintain the battery. The higher the amp hour of a battery, the higher the charger amps you’ll need to charge the battery. For maintaining only, a lower amp charger will work.

Below is a general size chart for choosing the correct charging amps for many SLA rechargeable batteries:

Battery Amp HourRecommended Amps of Charger
Under 7 AH500 – 750 milliamps
7 – 20 AH1 – 2 Amps
21 – 40 AH2 – 3 Amps
41 – 75 AH3 – 5 Amps
76 – 100 AH6 – 10 Amps
101 – 125 AH10 – 15 Amps
126AH+15 – 20 Amps

You can estimate charging times with the following formula: (Battery Capacity) / (Charger amps) = Charging Time

Shorai Battery Installation Guide

Click here for an easily printable PDF of this guide.

Do not throw away the box or any foam packaging until after installation is complete!! Please also be sure to read the included User’s Guide for cautions and information on care and charging…

You’ll need a 10mm wrench or a #3 Philips screwdriver to install the LFX battery, possibly scissors, and whatever tools are needed to remove and reinstall bodywork and to access the battery box.

EXAMPLE – BMW G450X

The factory-installed battery in the BMW G450X is Yuasa lead-acid YTZ7S. Our standard recommendation for Shorai Lithium-Iron is LFX09A2-BS12. The LFX09A2 weighs 3.5 lbs less than the original YTZ7S (or 1.59Kg, ~73% lighter), has less than 1/4 the self-discharge rate, and turns the engine 20% faster!

LET’S GET STARTED – CHECK CONTENTS…

  • Shorai LFX Starter Battery, with one set terminal screws/nuts pre-attached
  • Spare set terminal screws/nuts (A3 steel, tin plated)
  • Five Shorai Decals, in three sizes
  • Various sheets of high-density, adhesive-backed foam sheets for LFX fitment to stock battery box (if needed)
  • Outer packaging, with specs and dimensions
  • User’s Guide

CHECK POLARITY & SIZE

First, remove the original lead-acid battery from your vehicle, according to the maker’s guidelines. BE SURE to Remove the NEGATIVE terminal bolts and cables first, then the Positive, to avoid possibility of shorting from positive to grounded vehicle parts…

Compare the original battery side-by-side with the new LFX battery. First check that the Polarity (+/- terminals) arrangement is the same on both. If not, contact Shorai directly for advice. Next check that the LFX battery does not exceed the size of the original in any dimension (length, width, height). If the LFX is larger in any dimension such that it cannot be made to fit into the stock battery box, please contact Shorai directly.

Pictured above note that the LFX battery is identical in length to the original battery behind it, and below you can see the LFX is the same width as well, but a bit shorter. We’ve used one sheet each of 5mm and 10mm thick spacer foam to make up the height difference.

The included self-adhesive foam spacers are sized as below.


In this example, we only needed to shim the height. Do the same if the original battery is significantly larger in width or depth, and trim the selected spacers to fit with scissors.

Note! You will find the four terminal nuts (2 are spares) come with foam blocks attached on the nut bottoms. This helps keep the nuts in place during install, and up high where they can catch the bolt threads.

The G450X has a truncated battery box floor, so we’ve trimmed to fit the diagonal shape, then applied the sticky side of spacer to the battery box, as shown below.

The LFX batteries can bolt cable eyelets to either the top or front sides of the terminals. Be sure to Install the POSITIVE terminal cable first, then Negative, to avoid short circuits.

Max torque for the terminal screws is 30kg/cm (26 inch/pound). Do not over-tighten. We recommend the use of a #3 (big!) Phillips screwdriver, as this allows you to apply downward pressure on the terminal screw. That helps the
threads catch, and reduces torque on the terminals. Note that the terminals are not anchored at back, and may twist slightly during install. If so, performance is not affected.

Check that the positive terminal of the LFX battery cannot short against any part of the vehicle; and be sure that the original positive terminal cover, if any, is re-installed on the LFX battery before the battery box cover is fitted.

Weight Savings… Nice!

Shorai LFX batteries are pre-charged to approximately 90% of capacity. Therefore it is not required – nor generally recommended – that the batteries be charged before use in your vehicle. However, owners of Shorai BMS01 charger systems may use the CHARGE mode to fully top the battery, as the BMS01 will insure ideal cell balance and perform diagnostics to guarantee best performance.

Enjoy your Shorai LFX battery!

SHORAI INC.
845 STEWART DR., SUITE C
SUNNYVALE, CA 94085

See http://shoraipower.com for full product details and much more… Please use the on-site CONTACT form to ask us for help with installation, if needed.

Battery Activation and Charging Procedure for Dry Charged Batteries

  • Please note: The below information only applies to our Dry Charge conventional wet cell batteries. All of our AGM, Maintenance Free, and Gel batteries do not require acid and come charged and ready to install.


    First and foremost… Take great care when working with your battery!

    Batteries contains electrolyte (sulfuric acid) which is a highly toxic and dangerous substance if it comes in contact with your body. When carrying acid or a battery filled with acid, keep it away from your body. Wear rubber gloves and safety glasses when working with the battery to keep any possible acid from touching your hands or eyes.

    Batteries are also capable of delivering a high current discharge. Any jewelry should be removed and other metal objects should be kept away from the battery to avoid shorting across the battery terminals. It’s best to use only insulated-handled tools when working with your battery, as well.

    Initial Filling of your Battery

    Wet cell batteries like our Dry Charge batteries need to be filled with electrolyte (acid), which is dangerous to the eyes and skin. When working with acid, you should follow these simple precautions:

    1. Wear protective goggles to protect your eyes. If you do splash acid in your eyes, hold your eyelids open while washing your eye with lukewarm water for at least 20 minutes. Have someone contact your doctor immediately for further instructions, while you wash the affected area.
    2. Wear rubber gloves that extend well past your wrists. If you splash your skin, flush continuously with lukewarm water for at least 20 minutes and contact your doctor for further instructions.

    You can purchase electrolyte directly from our website when you order your battery. Simply choose to “Include Acid Pack” and add your battery to your cart. If you have any questions about ordering acid, you can give us a call at 1-800-405-2121. You can also purchase acid at most large auto parts stores.

    Once you have your acid, carefully fill each battery cell with electrolyte. Be sure to not overfill. Fill to a level that is just below the overfill line marked on the battery case. Once the cells are properly filled, replace the caps. Hand tighten only.

    You only need to put electrolyte in your battery once. If you need to fill the battery at a later date, use distilled water to keep your battery cell chambers to the proper level. Keep your cell levels above the minimum mark and below the maximum mark (these should be shown on your battery case).

    Charging your Battery

    Both hydrogen and oxygen are emitted while batteries are charging. Hydrogen is a very flammable gas and oxygen supports combustion. Because of this, you should always place your battery in a clean, well ventilated area when filling or charging your battery. Your chosen workspace should be free from anything that might spark a fire, such as welding, smoking, grinding, open flame, etc.

    Important Note: If you charge your battery at too high an amperage, you may cause the battery to overheat and even explode. Please read your instructions carefully regarding safe amperage charge levels for your battery.

    Initial Charging Procedure:
    Once you’ve filled your battery with acid and the battery caps are hand-tightened, you should charge the battery with a low-amperage battery charger. For best, safest results, a battery should never be charged at amperage greater than 10% of the battery’s capacity. So, if you have a 10 Ah battery, use a 1 amp battery charger. If the battery is 5 Ah, then you should use a 0.5 Amp (500 mA) battery charger. It can take around 10-12 hours to fully charge your battery, so we recommend that you use an automatic charger that will cut the charge off when the battery is fully charged.

    Recharging your Battery:
    When recharging your battery, you should check your cable connections and terminals to be sure they are clean and dry. Automatic chargers are your best options, as these will fully charge your battery and then help to keep it maintained and healthy. This maintenance is also important to keep your battery in good condition if it sits for extended periods of times (but keep an eye on your acid and fluid levels!). For recharging, you can likely use the same charger you used for the initial charge.

    You may also be interested in reading the following article about winter storage and maintenance:
    Off-Season Battery Maintenance
    Here you can learn about keeping your battery safe while it’s not in use, the effects of sulphation, and see some charger recommendations based on your battery’s Amp Hour rating.

    To view our line of products, please click one of these following links:

    You can also find your battery with our extensive look-up:

How to Jumpstart Your Vehicle with Booster Cables (Video)

With winter approaching, one of the most common questions we get at Battery Mart is about proper handling of booster cables. Below is a short (about 3 minutes) video on how to safely connect to vehicles with booster cables, brought to you by QuickCable, the makers of the popular Rescue Jump Packs.


Transcription of video:

Jumpstarting a vehicle with a dead battery is relatively easy and quick. But, it’s important for you to follow the correct procedures to prevent personal injury or damage to your vehicle. This video will show you how to properly jumpstart a vehicle, step by step, using a pair of rescue booster cables.

Be sure your car battery is actually dead before you decide to jumpstart it. If your ignition turns over or your cars lights or windshield wipers still work, the problem is not a dead battery. To Jumpstart your vehicle, you will need: a working vehicle with a good battery and a good set of booster cables. Always wear eye protection, and nitrile or rubber gloves when working around lead-acid batteries. Battery acid can cause severe burns and blindness. Remove any metallic jewelry from your hands and wrists before attempting to jumpstart a vehicle. Electrical contact with jewelry can cause serious injuries.

Okay, let’s start with the vehicle with the dead battery. Be sure the vehicle is in park, the ignition is off, and all electronics are turned off, such as lights, stereo, wipers, and air conditioning. If your vehicle has a manual transmission, put it in neutral with the parking brake set. Next, position the working vehicle close to the vehicle that needs jumping. Be sure the two vehicle are not touching. Put the working vehicle in park or neutral with the parking brake set and turn off the ignition.

Next, identify the positive and negative clamps and battery terminals. Rescue booster clamps are color-coded red for positive and black for negative. Battery terminals are usually marked positive, POS, or a plus sign for positive and sometimes color-coded red, or they are marked negative, NEG, or with a minus sign for negative.

Connect one end of the positive cable to the positive terminal of the dead battery. Connect the other end of the positive cable to the positive terminal of the good battery. Next, connect the negative cable to the negative terminal of the good battery. Finally, connect the other end of the negative cable to the engine block, vehicle frame, or some other metallic non-moving ground of the vehicle with the dead battery.

Start the vehicle with the good battery first. Let it run for a few minutes, then try starting the dead vehicle. Once the vehicle has been successfully jumpstarted, you can begin to remove the cables. Remove booster cables in the reverse order of connection, starting with the negative clamp connected to the ground. Be careful of moving engine parts as you disconnect cables.

For complete instructions on jumpstarting a vehicle, download the booster cable instruction sheet on quickhowto.com.

Solar Panels: Advantages and Benefits of Solar Power

Harnessing the power of the sunSolar power is a far-reaching technology. In recent years, it’s grown more and more popular as an efficient and economical energy source. Solar panels are becoming more common as a green alternative for commercial and residential applications.

A solar panel (also referred to as a Photovoltaic Module) is made up of an interconnected group of solar cells. A single panel generally only produces a limited amount of energy, but many applications allow you to work several panels together, forming a Photovoltaic Array.

Solar power has many advantages over more traditional power sources:

Solar power is a renewable resource. We are not in danger of depleting our reserve of solar power. Though the sun may disappear behind some clouds and isn’t around at night, it’ll always come back in full force.

Energy and heat from the sun is free. While solar panels tend to have higher initial costs than other energy solutions, there are no additional electrical expenses. Given time, the savings from your solar panel will begin to show.

Solar panels require little maintenance. One of the biggest reasons that electronic devices fail is due to moving parts. Solar panels have no moving parts and are much less susceptible to failure because of it.

Solar cells can last a lifetime.

They are excellent options for remote locations. When running large lengths of wires to connect to a grid are either too expensive or just not feasible, solar power may be a more realistic option.

Many other energy sources rely on depletable resources: fossil fuels, animal matter, plant matter. Sunlight, however, continually hits the Earth in large amounts, whether actively being used or not. Applying solar panel effectively omits the step of obtaining new resources.

Along with the advantages, it is worth commenting on some of the disadvantages of solar power. The sun is not always readily available (at night, cloudy day, snow covered, etc.), so it may still be necessary to have a back-up power source. Solar cells are still not exactly cheap. Outfitting your application to run completely through solar panels can have a significant up-front cost. Of course, this will likely improve over time, and technology improves and the cost continues to improve with it.

Interested in seeing some of the solar battery chargers we offer here? Be sure to check out our line of solar panels. Listed below, you’ll find a few of our most popular panels.

Disposable Batteries vs. Rechargeable Batteries: Which Should You Choose?

Making a choice between disposable batteries and rechargeable batteries can be a tough choice. Should I stick with disposables and their low cost? Should I spend a little more up-front and go with rechargeable? What are all my different options?

 

Disposable Batteries

AA Alkaline Disposable BatteriesDisposable batteries commonly power low voltage devices, such as clocks, flashlights, and toys. Life and endurance of disposable batteries vary, depending on the device and drain on the battery.

Disposable battery sizes include AA, AAA, C, D, and 9-volt. There are also disposable 6 and 12 volt lantern batteries. Chemistry types include Alkaline, Super Alkaline, Air Alkaline, Silver Oxide, and Zinc Air.

These batteries are not rechargeable and should be disposed of once dead. Since they are non-hazardous, these batteries can be disposed of with your normal household trash. The normal shelf life of alkaline batteries is 3 to 5 years (when stored at room temperature). You can gain longer shelf life by putting the batteries in a zip lock/air tight bag and storing them in your refrigerator. This can help if you live in a very hot location.

Disposable batteries work great for low-drain devices like smoke detectors, alarm clocks, and remote controls.

 

Rechargeable Batteries

9 Volt Rechargeable BatteryThe two most common rechargeable batteries are nickel cadmium (Ni-Cads) and nickel metal hydride (NIMH). The energy provided by these batteries is adequate, when compared to regular disposable batteries. Disposing of rechargeable batteries, however, is more hazardous to the environment because of toxic metals and should always be recycled.

Rechargeable batteries are accessible in quite a few sizes and voltages. Your choices of rechargeable battery sizes are similar to disposable batteries. You can find rechargeable AA, AAA, C, D, and 9-volt batteries. Two way radios and cordless phones commonly use NiCad and NiMH batteries, too.

The biggest advantage is the rechargeable feature. However, depending on the application, the run time of rechargeable batteries may be less than Alkaline batteries. Most rechargeable batteries are rechargeable between 200 and 300 times. Towards the end of the life cycle, you will notice the run time start to diminish.

In many cases, rechargeable batteries will ultimately save you money. This is especially true with items that you use frequently. Changing batteries frequently can quickly add up overall costs. At times like these, it’s best to invest in some rechargeable batteries and a charger to charge.

If rechargeable batteries make sense for you, consider keeping some extra batteries and keep them charged. If your power runs out, just quickly swap the batteries (and remember to charge the old ones when you can!). This makes it extremely easy to have a consistent power source for all your favorite devices.

 

Lithium Batteries

AA Lithium BatteriesLithium Batteries tend to stand apart from other batteries. This generation of batteries includes lithium, lithium-ion, and lithium-polymer technologies. Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer are rechargeable batteries, while lithium batteries are not. All forms of lithium batteries are hazardous and should always be disposed of properly.

These batteries almost always out perform and offer a much longer battery life than disposable or rechargeable batteries. Always make sure your application can use lithium-based batteries as they have higher voltages and will cause damage if used improperly. Also, you must always make sure your charging system or chargers can charge lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries.

Lithium-based batteries are especially common in electronics like cell phones, laptops, and GPS receivers.

 

Is it possible to upgrade the device’s battery to a newer chemistry?

NiCad, NiMH and Li-Ion are all fundamentally different technologies and cannot be substituted for one another unless the device has been pre-configured from the factory to accept more than one type of rechargeable battery. The difference between them stems from the fact that each technology requires a different charging pattern to be properly recharged. Therefore, the portable device’s charger must be properly configured to handle a given type of rechargeable battery.

Refer to the owners manual to find out which rechargeable battery types the particular device supports or use our QuickFind search engine to find the device in our database. The database will automatically list all of the battery types supported by the machine.

What’s the difference between F1 and F2 terminals?

In this post, we will show you a comparison of F1 and F2 terminals.

The most common sealed lead acid batteries (SLA) use blade connectors. These are a single wire connection using a flat ‘blade’ which is inserted into a receptacle. Usually, both the connector and receptacle have wires attached through soldering or crimping. Sometimes, pushing the receptacle onto the blade forms a connection.

These connectors come in two sizes: F1 and F2. F2 terminals are slightly wider than F1 terminals. There are terminal clips available to convert an F1 terminal into an F2.

Here are some comparison images (enlarged for clarity) showing the sizes of the terminals:

F1 Terminal

F1 Terminals are 3/16″ (0.187″, 4.8mm) wide.

F2 Terminal

F2 Terminals are 1/4″ (0.25″, 6.35mm) wide.

Terminal Adapters

There are adapters to convert F1 terminals to F2 terminals and F2 terminals to F1 terminals. These are small blades that fit right over the battery’s terminals. They are inexpensive and can save you some money if your battery is the right size for your application, but the connectors need a different sized terminal.