It's been my impression that it is the other way around in that old
batteries require more time to get charged. Of course I may be thinking of
really old, versus 'middle aged'.
A brand new pack will not be at full capacity yet, so can't used all those
KWH promised yet, so won't need a super long bulk charge, but may well
need a fair amount of equalization for a few cycles until everything wakes
up.
A new pack used enough to be broken in requires the longest bulk charge
phase to replace all those available KWH, but has a short equalization
period as the cells generally match pretty well. If it is cycled to its
full capacity, then would indeed require the long charge time.
A middle age pack is losing some capacity so less KWH can be used and in
turn less KWH need to be replaced, so the bulk phase does get shorter. As
balancing becomes more of an issue, more time is needed to equalize. I'm
not sure if the total charging time is all that different.
On truly old packs, such as in my truck :-(, the bulk phase is rather
short since not many KWH involved. But the equalization phase takes
forever as I have to keep the current very low to avoid lots of heat and
gassing but meanwhile some cells are lagging far behind and need that time
to catch up. So although the total power involved is low, the total time
is loooong.
I don't use the GE charger on my ET... now I'm curious if that timer is
"calibrated" to give the longest time to new or old batteries?
Thon Basom wrote:
I've seen references a couple of times to the fact that newer batteries
need
to stay on the charger for longer periods of time than older ones. Can
someone give me a simple explanation of why?
_________
Jim Coate
1970's Elec-Trak
1992 Chevy S-10 BEV
1997 Chevy S-10 NGV
http://www.eeevee.com
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