Battery Charger

Soundguy · Jan 13, 2006

As another person mentioned.. those ammeter they use on bat chargers are not very accurate.. It would be nice if you had a seperate ammeter to verify that it was hitting 15a. Have you tried it on your car battery to see what it does there?

Soundguy

vongiese · Jan 14, 2006

took the cover off - only see a transformer ...

marks · Jan 14, 2006

I just purchased a Vector 2/6/10/35 12v automatic charger, that desulfates the as well - $65 including shipping at Amazon. This desulfating of the battery is an important, and often overlooked procedure, for maintaining its performance.

Hope this helps.

Bedlam · Jan 14, 2006

Could you explain de sulfating? Please. Im not framiliar with it. Thanks
AL

kozak · Jan 14, 2006

Bedlam,

Did'nt know what it was either so decided to investigate & found out the following.

If lead acid batteries are stored for a long peroid of time, lead sulphate will form on the negative plate of the cell. If batteries are stored in warm conditions (35 deg. C) sulphating can occur much quicker....3 to 4 months. Same thing can happen if a battery is left in a discharged state for a long period of time. The sulphate layer on the cell increases the internal resistance of the battery to an extent that it will no longer accept a charge. What some people do (& I guess in this case the charging equipment if it has this feature) to recover a badly sulphated battery is to apply a much higher voltage than normal charging voltage to increase current flow which will start to break down the sulphate layer. Caution needs to be exercised though because as the sulphate layer is broken down, current will start to increase very quickly.

Interesting eh !!

Vic

HomeBrew2 · Jan 14, 2006

Agree with "marks" and "kozak". Bought a "BatteryMINDer" and old batteries were brought back to life. Note: one old RV battery took 3 full months to desulfate (way beyond mfg recommendations and my expectations).
Cheers!

vongiese · Jan 15, 2006

That's what has me interested in these "smart" chargers - the fact that they use a 3 stage process to charge the battery by "reading" how the battery is taking the charge and adjusting so as to optimize the charge and the desulfication option which sounds good. But I've read a few bad reviews on these chargers (among many good reviews). Like Soundguy said - these new types have more that can go wrong with them....thus I'd loveto hear others opinions and experiences with these chargers.
I've been looking at a Vector 2/6/12 amp model that hasmany of these options. It's around $50 delivered from amazon.com.
mike

Sully2 · Jan 15, 2006

Voltage

Someone might find this handy to have

vongiese · Jan 15, 2006

I wiggled all the connectors and plugged it in and seems to be working normally. Most of the inside has a film on black stuff on it including the transformer....
But I'm still looking at a replacement....