Smart battery chargers with reconditioning modes

[ultrarunner]

Home Depot has the Battery Tender Jr. on sale for $19.95 in store only.

 

[John_Mc]

Home Depot has the Battery Tender Jr. on sale for $19.95 in store only.

Pretty sure the Battery Tender Jr (and possibly all Battery Tender models?) do not have a desulphation mode.

 

[3930dave]

yes, thanks, this is heavier duty version. Dave's idea of doubling up on a trailer plug was a great solution for how can I do this with what I have.
something simple hanging down would be ok; thinking of the receptacle end. Dave, pushing the plug in isn't so bad. It's pulling it out that is hard. And why getting a PTO collar off is becoming a real issue for me.

Was guessing that pull would be the challenge...... Those flat 4 connectors typically have a pretty tough body material - with a little luck, you may be able to drill a small enough hole in the back-end of the body to not disrupt the pin connections, yet still feed a narrow bore zip tie through to create a pull loop. If the experiment doesn't work, the parts are low cost, so not a big loss....

Let us know if that works out, or what alternate connector does.....

Rgds, D.

 

[aczlan]

yes, thanks, this is heavier duty version. Dave's idea of doubling up on a trailer plug was a great solution for how can I do this with what I have.
something simple hanging down would be ok; thinking of the receptacle end. Dave, pushing the plug in isn't so bad. It's pulling it out that is hard. And why getting a PTO collar off is becoming a real issue for me.

How about something like this?
Amazon.com: Hopkins 48595 4 Wire Flat Mounting Bracket: Automotive

The vehicle side can be attatched with two bolts or screws so it's fixed and you only have to handle the trailer side. That would work with either the two pin plugs I linked to earlier or a 4 pin trailer plug.

Aaron Z

 

[daugen]

First, my thanks to RBStern for allowing us to go off on an electrical connection tangent here,
but at least it applies to all these chargers. Trying to be respectful of OP's original question.

Aaron, that looks great. What I do is print out these pics and then take them down to the barn and look at the equipment.
Some of my great ideas aren't so great...
Now that receptacle would work great since I have plenty of room on that simple wooden board bottom I made for the water wagon.

I wonder if it will pass the submergence test. Really. I've gotten distracted twice (out of hundreds of fills...) and the whole water wagon overflowed.
The entire cart filled up and for about half an hour that entire little wiring apparatus of mine was fully submerged, while thankfully disconnected by that
switch from the power source. So after I lunge to turn off the water, and look at this little swimming pool with the pump and battery totally underwater, all I could
think of is what a classic short circuit. And why hasn't something blown up?

Well, there were drain holes in the bottom, clearly not big enough, and after about half an hour
the water drained out. I then took an air gun hooked up to my big compressor and did my best to dry it out. The pump was marine rated, as was the on off switch. Both high
quality. But an underwater battery clearly has all kinds of interesting electrical flows from one pole to the other I believe, and I'll leave it to someone much smarter than me
to explain what happens. But of course the battery which had just been charged is almost dead. But when I threw the switch to see if the pump was alive, it started up like it was happy to do that all day. Dodged a major bullet. Twice. Trying to not multitask next time and pay attention to the water level in the 55 gallon drum.

And human nature being what it is, I'm likely to overflow it again. I could drill lots of big holes in the cart bottom but with all the weight I'm carrying, not a fine
structural idea. So Aaron, we'll see if it passes the Great Flood test and I shall certainly report back. For sure flooding any of the chargers themselves is a sure fire way
to completely wreck them.

Ok back to who makes the best chargers. Thanks OP.

 

[aczlan]

I would guess the one I linked to would be fine with being submerged being as it is intended to go on the back of a vehicle where it could be sitting outside in the snow, rain, salt, mud and whatever else is there.

Aaron Z

 

[sixdogs]

Question--when using the "repair" mode on a Genius or other smart charger, instructions say to disconnect the battery cable because of sensitive electronics. Does anyone do that, does it matter on a farm tractor or is it just for high end cars and that sort of thing? Also, how often do you use the repair mode and do you do it something like once a year or wait until battery trouble?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If disconnected a few times then forgot all about the warning on any vehicle and so far (10 years) so good.

I prefer to do it quarterly and for sure before I see a need for it but often it is not the case. Today I am doing it on a new like AGM, an older LA starting battery and an old DC-27 deep cycle.

It does pulse the plates but never had it mess with the computer modules but ours are about 10 years old so I do not know about all the new smart chargers. I expect it is a CYA statement from legal.

 

[John_Mc]

The BatteryMinder folks are having a 10% off everything Cyber Monday sale. Just use the code "CYBERMONDAY" at checkout.

 

[sixdogs]

Can you repair charge an AGM Optima battery? It's lead-acid so I think you can but there is no reference to this in any of the owner's manual or on-line info from the website. DOn't want to do it unless I'm sure.