1300 468 931
27 August 2014
How a car battery works
While maintaining your car and fixing its problems most of the times you use the phrases that car battery needs to be recharged or the car battery is dead. In order to understand the meaning of these phrases you will have to understand the working of your car battery. You will be able to maintain your car battery in a better way after understanding its working.
Role of electricity in the working of car battery
You will have to understand the role of electricity in your car battery Perth to understand its working. While talking about electricity you might have heard of negative and positive charges. These charges are related to the electrons, the negatively charged ions, through which the electric current travels in your car battery. The presence and absence of electrons is referred as positive and negative ions of the electricity. These ions travel from positive terminal to the negative terminal of your car battery. All the components of your car which require electric current to be active, including its engine, wipers of windshield and central locks of its doors etc, are connected to the positive and negative terminals of your car battery.
Construction of car battery
Your car battery is made up of six smaller cells having their own negative and positive terminals. Each cell is coated with lead and contains 16 metallic plates overlapping each other, 8 plates for each terminal. These plates are completely soaked into a bath with sulfuric acid of 35% strength. Sulfuric acid being a good conductor of electricity and a strong medium ensures the steady flow of electrons. These plates turns into lead sulfate when your car battery is discharged but when it is recharged then these plates appear to be of lead oxide due to their chemical reaction with sulfuric acid.
Working of car battery
The chemicals in the battery plates react with the acid in the bath to produce electricity when you turn on the ignition of your car. The electrons released by the plates on the positive terminal of the battery cells travel to the negative terminals to complete the circuit and then from one cell to the other to provide electric supply to your car. Each cell of your car battery emits 2 volt current which goes on accumulating while passing through all of its six cells to give 12 volt current to your automobile. That is why car batteries are labeled as 12 volt batteries.
The 12 volt current supplied by your car battery is enough to start the engine of your car as well as the functioning of various other electric operated parts. While maintaining your car battery you are supposed to check the water level in it as the water in sulfuric acid breaks up while overcharging the battery and a kind of Acid Soup is developed in it. Normally distilled water is added to the battery cells to balance the consistency of their sulfuric acid. This will help your car battery to work properly for long time.
Thus understanding the working of your car battery will help you in taking its care in a better way. If you’d like some help with your car battery please give us a call on 1300 468 931 or leave your details here and we’ll help you as best as we can.
