If you have ever been curious as to how the battery in your light-duty truck works, we would be happy to explain the process below. If your truck is three years old or older and you have the original battery in the truck, it’s time to replace it. One of the first things to know is that a standard car battery lasts approximately three years to four years and that’s it. After this time, you may end up with a dead battery. We can help prevent this by replacing your battery when it needs it.
Lead/Acid Technology
Now, let’s talk about how the battery works. Basically, you have lead and acid inside your truck’s battery that work together to create chemical energy. This chemical energy is converted into electricity and sent to the battery terminals. The battery terminals use the battery cables to disseminate the electricity throughout your truck’s engine for various electrical needs.
Let’s Get More Detailed
If you are looking for a more detailed explanation, here we go. The lead plates in the battery combine to make six cells that are lined up inside the battery case. Each cell contains two lead plates. One plate is made of lead dioxide, and the other plate is just plain lead. Each cell can produce two volts of energy. As such, the standard battery in your life-duty truck is a 12-volt battery.
The lead plates do more than help to generate electricity. They also store unused electricity to keep the battery charged when your truck’s engine is not running. To generate electricity, sulfuric acid is poured over the lead plates until they are covered by it. This triggers the chemical reaction needed to produce electricity. Specifically, there is a chemical reaction between the two plates in each cell. The chemical reaction between the two plates creates ions that move and lead sulfate.
The movement of the ions also creates a chemical reaction. In this case, what is produced is lead sulfate and hydrogen. These chemical reactions or chemical energies along with the moving ions produce electricity in the battery. As we mentioned above, the electricity is routed to the battery terminals so it can be dispersed through the engine using the battery cables.
If your battery is going bad, you will start to have electrical problems with your light-duty truck. Bring the truck to our shop as soon as possible so we can replace the battery with a new one. This will prevent you from getting stranded with a dead battery.
