Re: (ET) Fw: Stock E20 charger

["David Roden (Akron OH USA)" <etpost drmm net>]

There's a pretty wide window for most battery types, but in general a rule 
of 
thumb for cyclic use is to charge at 10% of the C20 capacity expressed in 
amps.  For golf car batteries, that's about 25 amps.  This rate ensures 
that 
the battery is charged in a reasonable amount of time, and doesn't get 
undercharged and sulfated.  

Some batteries actually require bulk charge current of at least this 
amount or 
they lose capacity (Hawker batteries are infamous for this).

Quite a few low cost chargers are actually taper chargers and won't 
deliver 
their rated current except at the very beginning of the charge.  

In the Soneil range, the 3650SR meets the above requirement.  The 3630SR 
would probably work OK, too.  Of course, it would take longer to complete 
the charge cycle.

However, with a Soneil charger you probably should remove the battery taps 
for the lights and lift and replace them with a DC:DC converter.  It's not 
clear 
to me that Soneil chargers will perform enough equalization to deal with 
the 
sometimes rather large pack imbalance caused by the taps.  This would 
result in some of the modules (most likely the ones driving the lift) 
gradually 
getting more and more undercharged.  Not good.

Probably the most cost-effective smart charger for an ET is an automatic 
golf 
car charger such as a Lester (especially if purchased used).  Lesters tend 
to 
go a bit overboard with equalization - just the thing for a tapped 
battery.  ;-) 
It's a seriously big and bulky boat anchor, though, so it's really suited 
only to 
offboard charging.