Battery charger

[CK]

Went to charge up some batteries the other day and after a little tampering on account of th damn thing not charging, blew a gasket in my current unit. A bit of a POP and some black smoke got out. So am guessing I'm looking for a new one.

So, as I have both lead acid, & dry cell, or is that gel :huh: I'm after any reccommendations or ideas on what I should be looking for and an approximate cost if possible.

Cheers

[Justin Boyle]

I have a Projecta 16a charger that seems to do the job fine. Around $180 on ebay. The favoured charger out there is the ctek in either 7a or 15a but cost a bit more!!! You can select 2,4,8 or 16a charging on the projecta. U cant do that with the ctek. The cteks are neater more quality units but I guess you get what you pay for. I like my projecta and the only complaint I have is when charging at 8 or 16a the fan inside is pretty noisy. The ctek doesn't make a sound as far as I know. I think you can mount the ctek also. Projecta have a 15a charger more similar to the ctek but is a bit more expensive than the 16a I have. All these chargers will charge all 12v batteries.

[CK]

Cheers JB, was actually just reading your thread on a similar subject.
Will take a look at both and see if the price differential between the two is worth it

[CK]

Still looking into this one guys so bear with me here
I have both gel / sealed batteries and lead acid that need attention periodically.

Does putting the charger onto the sealed batteries after each trip, regardless of the amount taken out of them, damage them / reduce their life expectancy in any way. Charger is an electronic 10amp unit.

[Justin Boyle]

The Projecta one I have just holds the battery at a constant 13.9v when the battery is fully charged. Presumably this doesn't damage the battery. I don't know what the CTEK does but they do say that you can leave the charger plugged in permanently and you won't damage anything. I would say the CTEK is the same.

Does anyone know what voltage the CTEK's hold the battery at?

[BlackBreamer]

I have a c-tek charger at home cant remember the voltage they hold Coonta there great chargers mine cost me $160.. I'll let you know when i get back to Adelaide...

[deltaranger]

Originally Posted by Coonta Kinta

Still looking into this one guys so bear with me here
I have both gel / sealed batteries and lead acid that need attention periodically.

Does putting the charger onto the sealed batteries after each trip, regardless of the amount taken out of them, damage them / reduce their life expectancy in any way. Charger is an electronic 10amp unit.

Be careful with mixing gel and sealed lead acid batteries, both have different needs for charging and maynot be able to be properly charged on the same charger! In saying that, some chargers do have the capacity to charge both types- are they linked together or separate units?

Charging a battery after every use is recommened and when you think about it your car battery is being charged when your driving. What the "pitfall" is with charging is how many cycles of charge has it had, for example a mobile phone that has been put on charge after useing half its battery hasn't been through its cycle till you use up half again and then put on charge again- if that makes sense

[CK]

Deltaranger, thats where I'm having trouble getting my head around things. "The cycles"

Presumably, the gel/sealed battery is a deep cycle 140ah(i think), I have two. These are my leccie batteries and other than powering the plotter, when its aboard receive no auxillary charge from the motor, which is a pull start. The motor only charges an N70 car battery which is used to run my sounders, bilge/live well pump, & lights.

My trips are generally short, lasting 2-4hrs but the leccie will get a fair use in most of this time, but not enough to pull out a great deal of the stored power. So if I use say 25% of that stored power today will putting it on charge to bring it back to 100% reduce the number of cycles I have left in the battery? ie, would I be better to reduce the charge to 50 or even 75% before charging.

Charger is 10amp scorpion, kindly donated by my good friends @ "Parts Boys" it has a low & high switch, but the instructions are not clear on how/when to use either.
http://www.justtools.com.au/prod4795.htm


The lead acids, of which there are also two are large cranking batteries for my other boat and occassionally I give them a top up if I havent been using that boat much or feel that they need a top up.

Sorry to be perserving with this enquiry guys, but it does seem like rocket science for me, evn though it probably isnt!

[seamonkey]

Coonta

Keep the batteries fully charged if you can. Below 12.4v a battery starts to sulphate and stratify which is much rougher on the battery than the number of cycles. You'll get more cycles out of a regulary charged battery than one which is allowed to drop for a prolonged period of time.

smky

[Ian Sewell]

Your charger is certainly OK for your lead acid batteries but doubt it is all that good for your AGM. I have attached a link to a chart which shows a graph on recharging cycles, it may help with your troubles in getting your head around it. Obviously things can be sped up by poor quality battery chargers and slowed down with good ones.

http://www.fullriver.com/products/ad...Ccyclelife.pdf

C tek float voltage is 12.9V to 14.4V. Also go to the website of your make of batteries and they will have a sheet on the specs for your battery which will help with finding the info you need.

HTH
Ian.

[CK]

Excellent graph Ian, many thanks. So essentially the lower the discharge between recahrges the higher the number of cycles one can expect from the battery. See it aint rocket science at all.

OK, now to expand on your comments further. Can you explain why the current charger will not be suitable. Is this because it does not pack enough punch for sealed batteries?

Again I appologies for the seemingly stupid questions

[seamonkey]

Pretty much...AGM batteries require a little more oomph and also a little more control. Your charger will charge it but probably won't get the best out of the battery. I wouldn't panic in the short term but to get the best look out for a decent multistage charger like the C-tek in the near future. Don't know the Projecta's but sounds like they are suitable too.

Can you post up the label/model number of your deep cycles?

Smky

[smokindrags]

i second the advice by seamonkey

electronic chargers do charge in stages which puts a deeper charge into the battery.

[deltaranger]

[QUOTE=Coonta Kinta;272906]Deltaranger, thats where I'm having trouble getting my head around things. "The cycles"

Sorry for not being clear, 1 cycle is when the battery is fully charged and then discharged fully( don't fully discharge tho) a deep cycle battery has approx 500 cycles before it U/S depending on how its maintained, but by the sound of it you do look after your batteries. If your only useing 25% of the battery, then it would take 4 chargers to go through 1 cycle- 25% +25% +25% +25% = 1 cycle
Do look for a electronic charger for AGM (gel) batteries otherwise you get less than half the battery life- have seen it on scrubbing machines that have had lead acid battery charger, charging AGM batteries

Hope this clears up what I was talking about

Also for sealed gel batters or any deep cycle, your charger should be atleast 10% of its amp capacity so with your 140amp batteries a 14amp multistage charger is the minimum other wise they will never get back to 100% with a lower amp charger.

Do a seach on google on how muti stage chargers work and you'll understand how they are more effective & better for your battery than single stage chargers, which most projectors are.
You should really charge a deep cycle with a single stage charger - you can do it but you should do it many times.