Battery charger
- Thread starter mjac
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DiploStrat
Expedition Leader
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
No worries then. Inverter gens are perfect for battery charging. As the battery gets full, the amps flowing will go down, so the charger draws less and the gen throttles down.
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
Two things if you decide to go with the Stanley/B&D...
Stay away from that rapid charge boost button. I've used mine a couple times to bring a low battery up enough to where it will start a vehicle. It's on a timer. Works fine. After I did it for a buddy of mine, he bought the same charger. Couldn't keep his hands off that button. Pushed it over and over every time the timer ran out...ended up letting the magic smoke out of his charger. Said it was a LOT of magic smoke.
The other thing is the desulfation. I bought mine just to play with that. Tested it on an old junk battery. It DOES work. But it's on a 24 hour timer, and when it's doing that, it is NOT charging. So certainly, use that feature on a regular basis (monthly or more often), BUT, only from shore power, not the gen.
Stay away from that rapid charge boost button. I've used mine a couple times to bring a low battery up enough to where it will start a vehicle. It's on a timer. Works fine. After I did it for a buddy of mine, he bought the same charger. Couldn't keep his hands off that button. Pushed it over and over every time the timer ran out...ended up letting the magic smoke out of his charger. Said it was a LOT of magic smoke.
The other thing is the desulfation. I bought mine just to play with that. Tested it on an old junk battery. It DOES work. But it's on a 24 hour timer, and when it's doing that, it is NOT charging. So certainly, use that feature on a regular basis (monthly or more often), BUT, only from shore power, not the gen.
DaveInDenver
Middle Income Semi-Redneck
Optima data sheet was all I had at hand. Looking into Odyssey suggests 14.7V for rapid charge using inrush limit as a function of C10 capacity, also 15V max nominal charger voltage at 25 degrees C. There may be a mistake in the technical manual, they I believe mix up C10 and rated capacity in one chart. The PC25/35-1400 I own have a 10 hour discharge capacity of 6.2A, so reading what I think they mean a rapid charge to 100% curves are for a 49.6A inrush will take 90 minutes, 99.2A is 50 min and 192.2A is 30 min. Thus my DL-45 should be able to return a discharged battery close to 100% at the 0.8C rate.
The normal Odyssey profile is come up to 14.7V during bulk using a minimum of 0.4 * C10 (24.8A for my PC1400) constant current charger, hold at 14.7 V for absorption using 0.001 * C10 as trigger to drop to float of 13.6V indefinitely. It's basically the same profile Optima specifies with a couple of stricter tolerances. This is close to what the IQ/4 profile will look like, although the float trigger will be higher.
Odyssey is a valve regulated gel which is slightly different than AGM and flooded types because you must adhere to a temperature coefficient. In the case of the PC25/35-1400 it's +/- 24mV per degree C from 25. So if you're using 14.7V nominally at 35C you need to adjust down to 14.46V or alternatively if you want to use 14.8V be sure the battery temp stays below 21C. They can tolerate high temperatures but you just have to watch the parameters to prevent overheating them.
Data sheet spec lists the Odyssey as fully charged internal resistance of 2.5 mΩ, which is almost exactly the same as Optima specs the Red Top at 3 mΩ was.
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
Um...random thoughts...
Inrush is a term that generally refers to a momentary event and takes a meter with sample and hold capability to measure it.
You sure the Odyssey is gelled? I thought they were TPPL AGM.
Fully charged resistance won't be much different for any lead-acid battery. It's at the bottom of the resistance curve where the differences will show up. Though in truth, the Odyssey is also an oddball design as batteries go, so there might not be much difference from an Optima even at the bottom of the curve.
All lead-acid batteries have temp coefficients to adhere to.
I haven't looked at the Odyssey tech manual in years, but as I recall, they spec a maximum of C*4. So theoretically, if you had a charger that could push 400a, you could fully recharge a 100ah Odyssey in 15 minutes. (As long as you didn't overheat it. Good luck with that.)
Inrush is a term that generally refers to a momentary event and takes a meter with sample and hold capability to measure it.
You sure the Odyssey is gelled? I thought they were TPPL AGM.
Fully charged resistance won't be much different for any lead-acid battery. It's at the bottom of the resistance curve where the differences will show up. Though in truth, the Odyssey is also an oddball design as batteries go, so there might not be much difference from an Optima even at the bottom of the curve.
All lead-acid batteries have temp coefficients to adhere to.
I haven't looked at the Odyssey tech manual in years, but as I recall, they spec a maximum of C*4. So theoretically, if you had a charger that could push 400a, you could fully recharge a 100ah Odyssey in 15 minutes. (As long as you didn't overheat it. Good luck with that.)
chet6.7
Explorer
I always thought any charger would charge,besides trickle chargers,any size battery as well.I bought a ctek 7002 thinking it was enough,now I ponder if it is powerful enough.
I am interested in your thoughts on this,as I just bought an AGM battery with 250Ah capacity and I don't want to buy another charger if I do not have to.
From Amazon
Charges 12-volt lead-acid batteries (Wet, MF, Gel, AGM and Ca) from 14Ah to 150Ah (charging) or 14Ah to 225Ah (maintenance)
https://www.amazon.com/CTEK-56-353-...e&ie=UTF8&qid=1474934910&sr=1-3&keywords=ctek
[h=3]From ctek manual
Technical Data 7002[/h]
| Spec | Data |
|---|---|
| Part No. | 56-353 |
| Input voltage AC | 85-125VAC, 50-60Hz |
| Output voltage | Nominal: 12V |
| Efficiency | HIGH 85% |
| Charging voltage | 14.4V /14.7V |
| Charging current | 7A max |
| Back current drain* | <1Ah per month |
| Ripple** | 4% |
| Ambient temperature | -4°F to +122°F, output power is reduced automatically at higher temperatures |
| Type of charger | 8 step, fully automatic switch mode with pulse maintenance |
| Type of batteries | 12V lead-acid batteries (Wet, MF, AGM, GEL and Ca) |
| Battery capacity | 14-225Ah |
http://smartercharger.com/products/batterychargers/ctek-multi-us-7002/ [h=1]CTEK (56-674) Multi US 25000[/h] TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Model number 1041 Input 110–120VAC, 50–60Hz, max 6A Output Max 25A, 15.8V Start voltage 2.0V Back current drain* Less than 2Ah/month Ripple** Less than 4% Ambient temperature -4°F to +122°F (-20 ̊C to +50 ̊C) Battery types All types of 12V lead-acid batteries (WET, MF, Ca/Ca, AGM and GEL) Battery capacity 40–500Ah CEC-400 Battery capacity 150–40 0A http://smartercharger.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20021718A.pdf |
evilfij
Explorer
My experience with the "smart" chargers is the are worthless if you have a truly dead battery as they microchip tells them not to charge at all. So really you need both. A 10amp dumb one to get the thing up to something that the smart one will actually charge and the smart one to not over charge the battery. I have a 1960s vintage dumb 10 amp charging, 50 amp starting charger and a auto parts 2/10 amp smart one. If the smart one won't charge, I stick it on the 10 amp dumb one overnight and then switch out to the smart one to finish it off and keep it charged. The 50 amp start feature is great because a few minutes you can use it to start a vehicle with a dead battery.
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
All lead-acid batteries have a self-discharge rate. So any charger that puts out enough to overcome the self-discharge rate will charge the battery.
Eventually...
But all lead-acid batteries also sulfate. Constantly. You can think of as a kind of rust, but made of lead sulfate instead of iron oxide. It corrodes the plates. Eats holes in them eventually.
It's pretty slow at full charge, but happens faster the further below 100% the battery state of charge is.
You bought an 8D size AGM...that sure wasn't cheap. How often do you drain it? How far do you drain it?
Sure, a 7a charger will eventually get it charged, but might take days. If you only use the battery once or twice a year and it spends almost all it's time fully charged...meh, doesn't matter if it takes a couple days to fully recharge.
But if you drain and recharge frequently, you're gonna want to get the recharge done ASAP to minimize sulfation and get the longest life you can out of that expensive monster of a battery.
Eventually...
But all lead-acid batteries also sulfate. Constantly. You can think of as a kind of rust, but made of lead sulfate instead of iron oxide. It corrodes the plates. Eats holes in them eventually.
It's pretty slow at full charge, but happens faster the further below 100% the battery state of charge is.
You bought an 8D size AGM...that sure wasn't cheap. How often do you drain it? How far do you drain it?
Sure, a 7a charger will eventually get it charged, but might take days. If you only use the battery once or twice a year and it spends almost all it's time fully charged...meh, doesn't matter if it takes a couple days to fully recharge.
But if you drain and recharge frequently, you're gonna want to get the recharge done ASAP to minimize sulfation and get the longest life you can out of that expensive monster of a battery.
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
Yea, IIRC with the Stanley/B&D, the battery has to have at least 2v for it to do the reverse polarity check.
I fooled mine once by just hooking up my old Shauer 10a dumb charger long enough for the smart charger to activate. Once the smart charger fired up, it kept working after I unhooked the old dumb charger.
The old dumb charger rocks out on totally dead batteries. It has an auto-reset breaker inside. So it tries for a few seconds, then overloads and trips the breaker. A minute later the breaker cools off and it does it again.
I've seen it do that for hours before the battery had enough charge for the resistance to drop far enough that the charger stops overloading.
I fooled mine once by just hooking up my old Shauer 10a dumb charger long enough for the smart charger to activate. Once the smart charger fired up, it kept working after I unhooked the old dumb charger.
The old dumb charger rocks out on totally dead batteries. It has an auto-reset breaker inside. So it tries for a few seconds, then overloads and trips the breaker. A minute later the breaker cools off and it does it again.
I've seen it do that for hours before the battery had enough charge for the resistance to drop far enough that the charger stops overloading.
Ducky's Dad
Explorer
I use a Ctek 7002 on my Grp 31 Odyssey AGM when it needs to be topped up between trips. It WILL charge the Odyssey but it WON'T recondition it. Odyssey prefers at least 40 amps for that battery, but they say that a 25 amp charger with the correct profiles will work on the Grp 31. The 7002 has worked very well on Grp 34 Optima and Odyssey batteries that have been deeply discharged, and has recovered most of the capacity of a couple of Optima Yellows that I had retired from service.
Odyssey claims that their new line of chargers will charge AGMs that have dropped to as low as 2V, so that minimizes the need for dumb chargers. CA has banned most coil-wound transformer chargers because they are not energy efficient, so if you have a dumb charger in CA, hold on to it. When you need it, you need it.
Odyssey claims that their new line of chargers will charge AGMs that have dropped to as low as 2V, so that minimizes the need for dumb chargers. CA has banned most coil-wound transformer chargers because they are not energy efficient, so if you have a dumb charger in CA, hold on to it. When you need it, you need it.
chet6.7
Explorer
"You bought an 8D size AGM...that sure wasn't cheap. How often do you drain it? How far do you drain it?"
I made a mistake on the battery specs...I did not buy an 8D,chalk it up to senior citizen brain fade.
I have not drained it much,it is mainly for my CPAP in the camper shell,I have only used it one night so far.
I made a mistake on the battery specs...I did not buy an 8D,chalk it up to senior citizen brain fade.
I have not drained it much,it is mainly for my CPAP in the camper shell,I have only used it one night so far.
dwh
Tail-End Charlie
"You bought an 8D size AGM...that sure wasn't cheap. How often do you drain it? How far do you drain it?"
I made a mistake on the battery specs...I did not buy an 8D,chalk it up to senior citizen brain fade.
I have not drained it much,it is mainly for my CPAP in the camper shell,I have only used it one night so far.
Then the 7a Ctek should do fine. Even a fully dead 100ah battery would probably be just about topped off within 24 hours with that charger.
From shore power. For a generator, you should probably go bigger.