Another AGM conditioning question
This is my chassis battery, an agm I got used and have little experience with. Trickle charger failed in storage, it is dead as a doornail. Not covenient to babysit it for long hours on meanwell or...
Forum Discussion
Smitty, I am not understanding your previous efforts then. An Equalization, or conditioning procedure should only be performed on a battery that is otherwise fully charged.
Meaning it was held at a regular absorption voltage until amps tapered to a low level.
Your reports of amps tapering now at 14.4v would seem to indicate you performed the previous 15.5v conditioning on batteries that were no where near fully charged when you started, and amperage required to push 4 undercharged lifelines to 15.5v would have been excessive.
I did not see anything where you said you discharged themn again then are performing the regular 14.4v absorption on them
Each time you discharge your lifelines they should ideally be brought upto 14.4v until amps taper to 0.5% of the total capacity of the bank. The charger does not taper the amps, it seeks to bring the batteries to, then hold them at a voltage, and as the battery fills it, requires less and less amperage to maintain that voltage.
So if the batteries are till accepting 15 amps at 14.4v they are not close to being fully charged. not until amps taper to 4, for your 4 L-16's, at 14.4v at 77f battery temperature.
The tapering to 0.5% at Vabs, can take a huge amount of time on batteries that have not been fully charged in a long time.
I've seen my northstar AGM take 3 hours for amps to taper to 0.5% of capacity, and after 2 weeks of partial state of charge cycling, it then required 12 hours held at absorption before amps tapered to 0.5% of capacity.
So basically the longer the tapering takes to reach the treshold, the worse the battery has been treated, meaning it was not being fully charged before the next discharge began.
And this partial state of charge cycling is very hard on a lead acid battery, but seemingly especially so on AGM's
Fully charging is actually pretty easy, Simply have the charging source seek and hold absorption voltage until amps taper to a certain level. The hardest part is having a charging source which can actually do this without trying to follow the bean counter's and lawyer approved comproimised one size fits all algorithm.
Seek and Hold 14.4v until amps taper to 0.5% of total battery capacity.
Only then should one initiate the 'conditioning' procedure, if required. If the batteries were regularly brought to absorption and held there until the amps tapered to the required level, the conditioning procedure would likely never be required.
Meaning it was held at a regular absorption voltage until amps tapered to a low level.
Your reports of amps tapering now at 14.4v would seem to indicate you performed the previous 15.5v conditioning on batteries that were no where near fully charged when you started, and amperage required to push 4 undercharged lifelines to 15.5v would have been excessive.
I did not see anything where you said you discharged themn again then are performing the regular 14.4v absorption on them
Each time you discharge your lifelines they should ideally be brought upto 14.4v until amps taper to 0.5% of the total capacity of the bank. The charger does not taper the amps, it seeks to bring the batteries to, then hold them at a voltage, and as the battery fills it, requires less and less amperage to maintain that voltage.
So if the batteries are till accepting 15 amps at 14.4v they are not close to being fully charged. not until amps taper to 4, for your 4 L-16's, at 14.4v at 77f battery temperature.
The tapering to 0.5% at Vabs, can take a huge amount of time on batteries that have not been fully charged in a long time.
I've seen my northstar AGM take 3 hours for amps to taper to 0.5% of capacity, and after 2 weeks of partial state of charge cycling, it then required 12 hours held at absorption before amps tapered to 0.5% of capacity.
So basically the longer the tapering takes to reach the treshold, the worse the battery has been treated, meaning it was not being fully charged before the next discharge began.
And this partial state of charge cycling is very hard on a lead acid battery, but seemingly especially so on AGM's
Fully charging is actually pretty easy, Simply have the charging source seek and hold absorption voltage until amps taper to a certain level. The hardest part is having a charging source which can actually do this without trying to follow the bean counter's and lawyer approved comproimised one size fits all algorithm.
Seek and Hold 14.4v until amps taper to 0.5% of total battery capacity.
Only then should one initiate the 'conditioning' procedure, if required. If the batteries were regularly brought to absorption and held there until the amps tapered to the required level, the conditioning procedure would likely never be required.
