Re: Battery Chargers, Pulse Units

[vic garza <vtr-garza worldnet att net>]

At 02:49 AM 12/12/98 -0500, David wrote:
>There are lots of things to consider.
>
>If your batteries are just now getting weak after 8 years, I think that's 
>pretty good performance.  In an on-road EV, we're lucky to get more 
>than 3 years from a pack.

8 years is terrific, I didn't think the shelf life of an unused trickle
maintained wet cell would even reach 8 years!! I usually only get about
4years of use at 40 mowings/yr to 50% discharge with my A-60, but these are
the 12v versions which are probably not as rugged. Wonder what kind of
charge/discharge protocol was used to get 8 years....

If 8 years of life can be had with the crude timer chargers on wet cells, I
take it to mean that just about any charger will work with these rugged
cells. I have also used the timer charger with the "maintainence free" deep
discharge Delco marine batteries presently in my A-60 and have about 3 
years
on them so far with no corrosion problems!

 Chargers for true SLAs do seem to be much more critical. I have found that
some of those used for charging SLA in cordless tools are at least semi
"smart" chargers and much cheaper than the purposely built kind. They
usually don't contain the sophisticated electronics and are slower to 
charge
a battery but are often built for long term seasonal trickle storage and so
won't overcharge. For example, I use the Sears wallwort cordless blower
charger ($14 replacement) which tapers from 600ma to 20ma for charging and
maintainence of 7ah SLA used in some of my smaller projects. Likewise maybe
the 36V cordless push mower chargers (Roybi?) could be used for tractors
converted to SLA?? Charging would take longer of course...

--Vic