Battery charger question
 

Hi EL,

To add my two cents. The new chargers have more features, are more
flexible (for the new battery types) and have more automation than the
older ones. I used a 20 amp 15-volt power supply out of a NCR
computer for years as my primary charger. Now I use a small three
stage, temperature compensated, "smart" charger" (Deltran's Battery
Tender International) for my wet car and deep cycle batteries.

If you have the time, please see Section 9 in the FAQ on
www.batteryfaq.org for more information about lead-acid battery
charging, chargers and tips on buying one. The different battery
types are defined in Section 7 and dealing with sulfation is in
Section 16.

If you have some large deep cycle trolling batteries (100 amp hours),
you might want to look at the 12 amp, three stage Schumacher
SS-120A-PE charger for approximately $80, but it is not temperature
compensated, so you would need to use it at room temperature. I have
dozens of charger manufacturers listed in the Battery References and
Information Links List on the same Web site under the Chargers, Float
Chargers and Smart Chargers Sections. Another possibility is you
continue using your old manual charger with a timer if it works well
and buy a small float charger to maintain your batteries at 100%
State-of-Charge to prevent sulfation. The key is that you need to
turn the charger off when the battery is fully charged to keep from
overcharging it and that can be a hassle watching the current meter or
guess how much time it will take to set the timer.

If you have additional questions, I will be glad to try and answer
them.

Kindest regards,

BiLL......

(Please remove "NOSPAM")

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:05:26 -0500, Eric Lang
wrote:


Based on the feedback here, seems like the only thing I am missing is
an automatic "shut-off". I charge at 2 amp rate, very slow. I beat the
batteries pretty good every season (2 deep cycles running 24 volts)
and they seem to last pretty long (2.5 seasons)..

Thanks for all of the good feedback!

-EL