Battery Chargers - Garage Fun and Results

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted By: 2strokeNorthstar
I have had 2 Schumacher chargers and got rid of them both. AGM and Gel settings charge at way too high voltage. Almost 16 volts. It will cook them. Battery tender, battery minder are good for maintenance. I use a xantrex right now. Seems to work good and keeps voltage with in range for my Odyssey batteries.


Xantrex makes great stuff. Remote temp sensing and the works.

Cant go wrong.

Curious what your odysseys are in. Ive got 2 PC2150s in my offshore boat.

UD

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
To the guys that have this Noco 3.5 Im curious about it if you know or could help me out it'd be great.

the 3.5 Amp Noco unit strikes an interesting balance between price and amps.

How big a battery is it rated to charge and maintain?
Up to 120Ah, according to owner's manual.

https://noco-thenococompany.netdna-ssl.c....0_f_3-3-17.pdf


Quote:
It does not auto chemistry detect you have to chose the mode AGM/Lead/ Gel right?
Right.

Quote:
Whats it default to on startup and if you change it will it remember on startup again?
It does not default to anything. When you turn it on, it'll always be on standby. You have to press the Mode button to get it to do something (cycle through all the different modes).


Quote:
Does it go in to desuphate/revovery on its own or do you have to activate that mode?
Supposedly it's automatic.

Quote:
This charger has no temp compensation, certainly not at the clamp, and not ambient either right?

Owner manual mentions "Thermal Monitor - Internal temperature sensors adjust charge based on ambient climate"

But then they tell you to choose the "COLD" mode manually if you are charging a battery in temperatures below 50F, so I'm a little confused by this.

 

[UncleDave]

Great info, thanks QP.

120's pretty decent should handle most gas auto groups

nicely featured for 79.95.



UD

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: UncleDave
Great info, thanks QP.

120's pretty decent should handle most gas auto groups

nicely featured for 79.95.



UD

It's $60 on Amazon right now, but often goes on sale for under $50.

I got my g7200 for $70. But I still use my ProLogix 2320 most of the time.

 

[wrcsixeight]

Not intending to sound snarky here, but

How important is it to you to have automatic "stages"

By that I mean reverting from absorption voltage, to float.

Do You often walk by the charger and look for the green light?

If it is a flooded battery do you ever use a hydrometer and verify the battery is indeed fully charged?

If it is an AGM battery do you use an Ammeter to check if the battery, while held at absorption voltage, is indeed fully charged? Could you even get the charging source to hold absorption voltage to determine this?

98% charged is good, but only half as good as 100% charged, especially on regularly deeply cycled batteries, and 98% to 100% can take an hour or more likely closer to three on a well used battery, at absorption voltage, and 6+ hours at float voltage.

I got so sick of trying to trick various automatic chargers into actually completing a full charge I now use an adjustable voltage power supply. I originally Intended to rig it upto a spring wound timer to prevent overcharge, but have never bothered.

As I type, my Northstar AGM battery is requiring 13.1 amps to be held at 14.7v.

When amps taper to 0.45 amps or less at 14.7v, I will then know it is fully charged, and drop voltage to 13.6v by twisting a dial. I also employ a thermocouple on battery itself and will adjust voltage up or down depending on battery temperature.

Deeply discharged batteries require a different algorithm than the unintentionally depleted or those that simply need topping off.

I just do not trust automatic. If I cannot be there to reduce voltage manually, then time to full is is not a factor either, so I put it to 13.6v, and when I come back I twist my dial back upto 14.7v and see how many amps the battery is taking. if it does not quickly taper to 0.45 amps or less( 90AH battery) then 13.6v was not enough or was not held for long enough to complete the task.

It is a shame when a charging source does not complete the task.

Verify, if you care about maximum lead acid battery longevity. Lead acid encompasses flooded/ gel and AGM.

 

[Errtt]

Currently using the CTEK MUS 4.3, plus the CTEK .8 for the motorcycle. They replace my Battery Tender Plus.

Also with the BatteryMinder 12248, I found when charging/maintaining an AGM, I'd sometimes find it had switch from AGM mode to GEL mode. It would do this on occasion, finally figured out the switching was caused from power outages. So would have to remind myself any interruption of utility power, go check/re-set the BatteryMinder.

 

[UncleDave]

No snark received here, excellent question. `

I run a boat shop, make rental boats that use a 48V electrical motors, and run and a mobile grooming business off diesel gensets and batteries.
I understand proper charging and deal wit more batteries than almost anything but a battery shop.
For big expensive array I manually tune the bulk ,float, absorb, based on the battery manufacturers own specs when using a " real charger" like an outback 2012.

My needs are way beyond your average guys.

Fully automatic operation is quite important because there are dozens of batteries and configs of varying sizes and I offer charging and analaysis using automatic methods as well as specific gravity tests on individual batteries on wet lead acid batts and banks.

I don't want to follow every charger around with ammeter I pick ones that I have tested which I can really on to fully charge.

A guys rig roll in for work we clamp on it night one and if the next day we arent fully green- we test - if we can recover we write it up, if we can't we offer new batt.

How often do I look for green lights- every time I pass a bench with more batteries than chargers and every morning when I come to the shop and walk past a million dollars in clients and my toys.

Yes I use ammeters ,as well as real monitoring tools like a bogart trimetric meter in RV, and outback's mate 3 system in the van.
Ive installed a Balmar meter or two I really like their shuntless design.





UD

 

[UncleDave]

This is only part of the shop - each boat has 2 3 batteries some AGM, some wet, some mixed.

If you find a charger maintainer you trust you only have to break out the tools if there is a problem vs every time.

Heres a shop shot and some fun toys.

The only come out and get set on a bench if they need to, but lots of edge case batts roll into my shop having suffered years of neglect.

I have and need a "boatload" of "real" charger/ maintainers/

 

[wrcsixeight]

Thanks. UD

I tend to have more intimate realtionships with one or two batteries at a time. With an Ah counter and Ammeter and voltmeters many many cycles from various depths of charge I get to understand the personalities of varoius batteries as they accumulate cycles.

Automatic chargers in my usage were making it difficult to get good lifespans from batteries, as they would keep quitting way too early, and tricking them into restarting and holding absorption voltage was a repetitive and somewhat futile process. Finding the charger in float then seeing 1.225 specific gravity or worse on all cells, then restarting the charger over and over, after loading battery to remove surface charge, was frustrating to say the least, and a waste fo time, and the opposite of automatic.

In my usage the adjustable voltage powersupply eliminates that issue entirely, and I get to see how much more voltage a battery holds during a discharge after it does get tht complete full charge, and how much less time it takes to achieve that true full charge when it is regularly achieved.

 

[UncleDave]

Ill baby certain stuff of mine like my RV's bank like a mother hen -

so I get it.

Not shown are the toys we toy in the winter and RV's dirt toys, quads dirt bikes the, all needing their own tenders

Yeah the majority of the " auto" stuff aren't really smart and actually cause more damage than they theoretically save.

I went through and seen some some real junk chargers before I settled on my combos i use today and I trust.

Luckily these devices are fialry cheap to acquire these days and easy to test as I already have the gear so I watch all sth charging threads hoping to see new tech that makes this part of my life easier.

I have tossed many "perfectly working" auto chargers in the junk bin with garbage algorithms and sky high voltage.

UD

 

[wrcsixeight]

UNderstood. For me it was hope for an acceptable algorithm, without enough data to make that determination before purchase, or go the manual route.

The programmable charger's prices were unacceptable to me, and I wanted to consider the possibility of Using a charger for Lifepo4 in the future too, and the 40 amp adjustable voltage power supply fits my needs well.

With my batteries there is truly full, for other's batteries there is 'full enough'

Many times i would use my automatic charger on their abused batteries, leaving it outside overnight, not much caring if it grew legs. That charger was good enough to start their vehicles, but out of curiosity I would bust out the hydrometer and be appauled.

Restart charger, many times. Find it in float 15 minutes later, and rarely an improvement in Specific gravity.

All irritated at the wasted time and effort I would then pull out my power supply, set it to 14.8v, hook it upto the battery and charge it until Specific grtavity stopped rising. This would be 1 hour to as high as 8 hours.

Often the ~85Ah battery would appear to accept about 25more AH before specific gravity stopped rising. Granted some percentage of that was turned to heat, but the last battery I did that to is still starting a vehicle some 9 months later, and after I recommended they expect to change it out soon.

I feel that this elderly particular battery still doing its job is more a testament to how little capacity a battery needs to start a modern fuel injected engine in a mild climate, as opposed to the quality of the battery or its in vehicle recharging, but I doubt it would still be going if i did not get the specific gravity upto ~1.275 on all cells with the power supply after 'automatic' kept quitting well short of that goalpost.

My posts in this thread were kind of hoping to get those interested in battery charging to help collect some data as to which automatic chargers actually approach that goalpost, and that can only be done with some actual verification, which requires the hydrometer on Flooded batteries and the Ammeter on AGM.

I do not trust green lights or marketing material claims.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: webfors
Would BM model would you recommend, other than the 2012?

The 2012 is an older model, not to say that it's bad or anything. I have one. It's more of a maintainer and top-off charger. If you have a very depleted car battery, it would take a very long time to fully charge it using only 2A current, but I guess eventually you'd get it done.

The newer model that superseded it is the 128CEC1, alas, that's even more expensive.

$150 on amazon.

The Solar Pro-Logix PL2320 is a good deal. It sometimes goes on sale on Amazon. I paid around $60 for it.



Sorry webcors, I haven't been tracking this. I agree with QP.

I have fully charged batteries that are technically near 0% SOC (
The solar mentioned is great, or if you want a high quality US made charger, look at the units sold by Rizk.

http://www.usabatterychargers.com/Portable_Chargers.htm

 

[UncleDave]

I checked the Mate 3 meter this morning before the van took off.

The Optimate 7 correctly floated my AGM bank at 13.6V.

last night I watched the mate and observed the units stages through the charge it peaked at about 14.7 and saw .8 once or twice very briefly under a second right after hookup, the whole thing worked like the brochure.

Very happy with its performance and have confidence when I see a green light from this unit.

I'll try it on a wet lead acid in a couple of weeks and see what specific gravity I can get out of the cells myself vs it on its own.


WRCsixeight - can you share which brand of auto charger you are having performance problems with?

UD

 

[JHZR2]

I have an optimate and my results echo yours.

 

[barryh]

Originally Posted By: wrcsixeight
UNderstood.

I do not trust green lights or marketing material claims.


I get very irritated when I use my sons automatic charger that just has lights.

I still use a simple regulated charger with an ammeter and an internal adjustment for float and full charge voltages so I can set it up for my AGM battery.

 

[wrcsixeight]

Quote:

WRCsixeight - can you share which brand of auto charger you are having performance problems with?


I have a schumacher sc2500a, which was only on the market for a short timespan in 2007/8 as far as i can tell.

It often will blow past the mid 14's and take a battery to 16+v at 12 or 25 amp outputs, which is incredibly abusive to it. Other times it will quit absorption early and drop to float well before the battery is anywhere near full.

Many reports of similar schumacher chargers behaving the same online.

A few neighbors have some chargers which are falling well short of the goal of a full charge.

One Firnd has a batteryminder 12248, likely 10+ years old now and it does not work properly anymore. Can only get it to come on for an hour at most before it just quits. The lights still work, makes one think it is still working, but a voltmeter or ammeter shows there is Zero output.

Another friend has a heavy old school style manual charger that has a 2 and 12 amp setting. On the 12 amp setting it never exceeds 4 amps and will never go above 14.1 volts. the 2 amp setting seems to be a maximum of 0.6 amps and only goes as high as 0.6 amp can take that particular battery.

 

[UncleDave]

Yeah my battery vendor isn't a fan of schumacher either, Ive had ok luck with mine, but consider them " budget" units.

I really only still use 2 of their small maintainers still and only on quad batteries. The rest stay in the cabinet, same with my vectors - now sold by black and decker.

He did say out of 10 or so Schumachers hes tested he was "ok" with their SC10030A unit and I can't remember the other one he said was ok. He noted he would grab an optimate any day of the week,

Iv got some old school high amp wheeled chargers in the shop, Ill still use them for bulking wet leads but they obviously have no maintenance mode.


UD

 

[Y_K]

Man, you made me buy Optimate 7! With Schumachers you never know what they are going to do next time you plug them in, unfortunately. Inconsistent.

 

[UncleDave]

Originally Posted By: Y_K
Man, you made me buy Optimate 7! With Schumachers you never know what they are going to do next time you plug them in, unfortunately. Inconsistent.


I think you will be very happy with it!


UD

 

[UncleDave]

4 new Crown group 27's getting a finishing charge from a CTEK 7002 and Optimate 6 before heading to the shop.
As soon as these 2 float Ill flip to the other 2.


UD