Re: (ET) name names: battery chargers

[David C Robie <mycroftxx1 juno com>]

When a wet cell battery is left alone for a long time, it develops a high
internal resistance (sulfation is one cause, another is striation, a
situation wher the heavier acid goes to the bottom, leaving low
concentration acid in the rest of the battery.  This means that it will
not accept anything but a very low charge maybe 1/10 (or even less) of
it's normal 'acceptance' at the lower voltage of a trickle charger (your
low rate charger).   The higher voltage of your higher setting however,
overcame this resistance, got the acid at the bottom warm , able to rise
and mix in to where the rest of the plates were and likely flaked off or
put back into solution some of the sulfate that insulated the lead.  This
is unusual, your battery at least wasn't hanging around outdoors a couple
years without a charge like many of my 'free' ones were.

Have done a lot of things with junkyard car batteries.  Homemade
windpower,  early photovltaics,  primitive friction drive Etrikes etc. 
To get a good batteries without spending money for em,  tried those
'amazing' chemicals,  pulsing type desulfators etc and even though
getting some back to some function, have come to the conclusion that it
is better to throw out an old car battery that has, through chicanery of
any type, come back to life rather than to trust it to always start your
car.  Especially in winter.   Or in my case several years back, to trust
6 of em which tested real good on a load tester in a GE8 to mow the whole
lawn, or 3 of em to run my shop stereo all day.   
     The car gets a brand new battery when it needs it.  For that, I
favor the Wal Mart heavy duty yellow ones. The solar and Etracks run fine
on recycled 'low range' castoff full size Evehicle 6V 105 Trojan golfcart
types which do not have the inherent problems of ' built to throw away
every 3 yrs' 12V car batteries.  Even after doing 25, 000 miles in a
fullsize evehicle (where round trip  range has dropped to 1/2 - 3/4 of
new batteries) these 6V EV batteries with lighter duties imposed on em
then in previous service,  are as good as gold.

Dave
Weymouth MA



On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 11:17:58 -0800 (PST) Daniel Eyk <danieleyk yahoo com>
writes:
> I have a question about battery chargers you might be
> able to answer. I have a regular 12 volt charger for
> our cars that will charge at 2 amps regular or at 10
> amps fast charge. I have a battery I am trying to keep
> alive until I can get the car running again and
> periodically have to charge the battery to maintain
> it. The last time I tried to charge it, I set it for
> the 2 amp setting as normal and let it sit overnight
> to charge the battery and when I tried to start the
> car, it just clicked  as a low battery would do. I
> reset it for the 10 amp charge and again left it
> overnight and the next day, the battery was up again
> as normal and I could start the car. The battery
> charge isn't that old, maybe 2-3 years and I was
> wondering if the 2 amp side was giving trouble and how
> could I check it to see if it is giving trouble? I do
> have a regular VOM. Could I hook it up to the battery
> and check the output with the VOM? I am not all that
> used to troubleshooting electrical and want to learn
> without blowing up my VOM. The other question is
> whether or not the 10 amp charge rate is too much to
> leave on overnight? Will it hurt the standard car
> battery by charging to fast for that long?
>                                   Thanks, Dan Eyk
> 
> --- tbamc <tbamc gbta net> wrote:
> 
> > Now that you've got me straightened out on small
> > chargers for my AA and 
> > AAA batteries, I want to get something for my larger
> > batteries.   :-)
> > 
> > I'd LIKE to be able to charge car, E-T, and gel
> > batteries, 6 and 12v, 
> > with a charger that will be smart enough to do each
> > of them 
> > appropriately.  Don't want it to take forever to
> > charge, but speed isn't 
> > a priority.
> > 
> > After studying the archives and doing some research
> > I've found some 
> > fairly expensive chargers that would fit the bill,
> > but very few that are 
> > less than the $100 limit I'd LIKE to have.
> > 
> > One that seems like a good fit--though 6A is max
> > current--is this:
> > http://store.schumachermart.com/sc-600a.html.
> > It says it will do AGM's but doesn't mention gel's. 
> > (It's larger 
> > version the SC 1000A--which won't do 6v--has a
> > selector button labeled 
> > AGM/gell, so I'm guessing choosing that mode works
> > for either one, and 
> > would be the same on the 600A?)
> > Schumacher tells me it uses 3 stage
> > charging--current, V, then float.  
> > And, it's less than $50.
> > 
> > IIRC, some had concerns about inadequate max
> > current.  I do have a 
> > couple old chargers with 10A capability, if that
> > helps.
> > 
> > Appreciate any thoughts you have about this one, or
> > others I might have 
> > missed.
> > 
> > Thanks.
> > Thon
> > 
> > On a related note:  WHY are so many chargers so
> > expensive??  Are the 
> > parts themselves that expensive?  I would have
> > thought with modern 
> > electronics  and technology this would be fairly
> > cheap to do??
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> >
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> > 
> 
> 
> 
>  
>
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