Battery Bug - The Walker Agency Public Relations Agency, Scottsdale, Arizona

For most of us, the inner workings of batteries are a complete mystery. Yet nearly all of us depend on these black boxes to start and run our cars, trucks, 4x4s, boats, RVs and campers. More often than not, our batteries do their job – but we have no way to predict when they're going to stop, leaving us in the lurch, or worse.

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Do you have 500 starts left in your battery or only five? Will your trolling motor run for three hours before you need to recharge, or 10 minutes? Should you replace your battery next year or next week? Batteries have been around since the 1850s, and in the meantime, we've sent men to the moon. Is it me, or does is seem reasonable that we should be able to answer simple questions about the batteries upon which we rely so heavily?

Batteries 101
To remove the mystery surrounding batteries and their state of health we first need to understand the basics of lead-acid batteries. Chemical reactions between the lead and acid allow electricity to be stored and later discharged. As batteries age, they naturally lose their ability to store energy – in other words, their capacity declines. So even if you fully charge the battery, it is able to hold less and less energy over time, until finally it can't store enough energy to do its job. At that point, the battery needs to be replaced.

When your starting battery doesn't start
The battery most of us use on a daily basis is a starting battery, which delivers a burst of electricity for a short period of time – hopefully long enough to start the car. After the engine starts, the battery is immediately recharged. There's not much to it.

Starting batteries fail when their capacity decays to the point that they can't start your engine. But how do you know exactly when to replace them? Voltmeters are often used to provide some indication of battery condition, but keep in mind that a voltmeter can show a perfect 12-volt reading on a battery that will not start your engine. What you really want to know is the battery's ability to store and deliver energy (its capacity), and how many more starts you have before you need to replace it.

An interesting device called the Battery Bug – Starting Battery Monitor (SBM) was recently introduced by Argus Analyzers (www.argusanalyzers.com). It attaches directly to your starting battery, tests your battery every start, tracks the battery's decline in health and sounds an alarm when the battery approaches end of life. A simple "fuel gauge" display shows where your battery is in its lifespan. In other words, it tells you precisely when your battery needs to be replaced Ð not too early or too late. And at $39, it's reasonably priced peace of mind.

When your deep-cycle battery isn't deep cycling
The other common type of battery is the deep-cycle (or "house") battery, which provides a steady stream of power to run lights, electronics, radios, trolling motors and the like. While deep-cycle batteries undergo the same natural deterioration over time as starting batteries, they face a host of usage variables that makes their longevity vastly more difficult to predict. Each use scenario has a different impact on a battery's heath, and in each, it's up to the user to monitor and respond appropriately to ensure the battery continues to do its job.

So while deep-cycle battery users face the more challenging task in managing their batteries, the number of useful tools available is surprisingly limited. Tools such as voltmeters and "current counters" provide pieces of the puzzle, but neither is able to tell you what you really need to know: when to recharge and when to replace.

The Argus Battery Bug – Deep Cycle Monitor (DCM) is the first battery monitor to continuously monitor the battery's internal resistance, which indicates battery health more accurately than voltage readings. Its display and audible alarms indicate when the battery needs to be recharged. In addition, the DCM also tracks the battery's deterioration over time and alerts the user when the battery needs to be replaced. For the first time, the battery's lifespan is no longer a mystery. The DCM, which can be reset and used on multiple batteries, retails for $109 – a sound investment in your battery's state of health and your state of mind.

Take the guesswork out of battery management. Don't let a dying battery put a damper on your summer activities. For more information, visit batterybug.com.

Summer is here: Don't be sidelined by dead or drained batteries