Battery equalization in southern California

Hi Niner,

I believe that "stirring" is every 20 hours not once per day.

Yes, the Schumacher is a good manual charger.

But one of those 59 dollar power supplies adjusted to say 14.8 volts and timed off after 8 hours would reduce the incidence of moderately sulfated batteries about 95% if the batteries were "top charged" once a week. This is what I have been yelling about for years on this forum.

Folks like BFL use their much more expensive chargers and converters to accomplish the same effect. It's the little guy with the WIMPCO converter that cannot charge batteries adequately that ends up with sulfated batteries and then tries to band-aid things with a hundred dollar piece of junk.

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Charge batteries with the onboard converter

Once a week let the power supply take the battery to 14.8 for as long as 8 hours. If the batteries start to bubble vigorously long before the 8 hours is up - dial back the timer. But take the batteries to 14.8 This is a formula not guesswork.

The power supply formula, above, should be good for one set of golf car batteries. If you have to separate and top charge, do so, if you're lazy like me, buy TWO power supplies, connect to a single wind up timer and SEPARATE the battery banks by disconnecting one parallel cable. I'm so lazy I'll put a lever switch in to isolate battery banks. Let's see, which do I hate worst?

Honey Where's The Flashlight?

Waddaya mean sixteen hours to equalize?

The death of a poor innocent EXPENSIVE battery and screwing up a perfectly good trip?

Got enough energy to go flip off the converter, plug in a power supply and twist the timer?

See this?

10 amp manual battery charger.

This is a c/20 charge rate for your pair of Golf Cart 2 batteries.

See how it says "Manual" ? Manual means that you become Manuel babysitting it while it does it's equalizing magic... in other words, you must be around to keep an eye on things, to measure the voltage at the terminals... you want it to get up to 16.0V, with the batteries disconnected from the trailer. Just disconnect the ground wire.

With a simple voltmeter to a 1/100th of a volt, bring the battery up to 15.7 to 16.0V. The batteries will be boiling, just a bit, so keep the lids on.

Unplug the manual charger when you get to 16.0V, immediately. It will be slow going with the meter to get the last 15/100ths of a volt to 16.0. This whole process, might, if charged up to 90%, take an hour, perhaps 2 at the most, of a little bit of checking every 10 minutes to see where the voltage is at, at the terminals. More frequent as the voltage gets a bit closer.

Let battery sit for a day. Take your hydrometer and read the specific gravity of every cell of each battery. Log the results. You should see 1.270 t 1.280 specific gravity for every cell. If you do, congratulations, your batteries are equalized.

regardless, the WFCO charge controller has to go... it wrecks very expensive batteries, all the time, playing it too safe with too low a voltage to do the job correctly.

To do it right, you must babysit the batteries, to a certain extent, after coming back from weekend trips, to really get them top charged off and back to 100% before storing away again.

If you have questions, MexicoWanderer is the resident Professional. Read carefully what he posts up, he won't mince words or steer you wrong.

This may seem complex, or difficult and confusing at first, but once you've done it a time or two, it becomes second nature... you know what to expect, you know how long it takes to do the batteries right, you know when to unplug.

If you leave a Pd9245 plugged in constantly , it does the big equalize cycle for you, once a day, for 15 minutes.

http://www.progressivedyn.com/pdfs/109821E%20english%20manual.pdf

IMO, the best converter is the adjustable Powermax units. The downside (for some) is they are NOT automatic. You have to adjust the voltage for each stage. But with some perusal of the Trojan website, you can figure out what each stage requires and set a timer to shut off the converter at the end of each stage allowing you to adjust the voltage for the next stage. No auto temperature compensation needed cause you'll be the temp comp. One of these days, I'll be getting one and won't need a standard converter anymore.

judelaurenzo25g wrote:
can someone take a look at this charger and let me know if it will work for my situation.

Charger Here

Believe it or not... the Schus can actually do pretty well. I have the SC-8000A and it likes to get into the 15V range. That's pretty high for public consumption as you are getting into the realm of potential electronics cookery as well as gassing, i.e. Hindenburg "air."

Their amperage specs are B.S., though. Mine says "12-30A." And only IT gets to decide. So I consider it a 20A charger, at best. I found an Amazon review years back that seemed to confirm. I don't have a DC amp-probe, but one of these days I'll have to test it with the Kill-a-Watt to see how it acts.

For an auto charger, Mex's Black & Decker VEC1093DBD cannot be beat... to 85% (though I think it does better than that.) I have the 25A version and love it. B&D acquired Vector years ago and rebadged their great chargers.

As stated before the equalize mode can get up to 16V... but only on a cold day. They're temp compensating... which is a good thing for safety.

But as Mex so eloquently eluded... these are designed by attorneys, with the general public's safety in mind. They are not up to the task of proper equalization. In fact, these are discontinued. The latest versions have dropped the equalization mode. I would bet at the behest of said attorneys.

My favorite for this purpose is my Harbor Freight beast. A few of us have them like Mena and Mex. Mex has lobotomized his and reported some stout components. And as far as the reviews go... he and I are in agreement. Most of the negatives are from people who don't know how to use them.

However, the ones HF is currently offering SAY "Manual," but don't appear to be well suited for equalizing. I found the following in the description...

"Switches to trickle mode when battery is completely charged"

I would think something like this manual Schumacher would do the trick, but I cannot claim any experience with them. Ha! I just noticed that Amazon won't ship them to The People's Republic of Kalifornia. Maybe walmart or ebay will. A good ol' used manual charger probably wouldn't hurt.

Equalizing is not that hard, but there are definitely some tricks and important rules. It's a bit of a dance between breaking up sulfate and eroding the positive plates in the process. Done properly... and somewhat regularly, you should expect much greater lifespan.

I believe Mex has an equalizing tutorial around here somewhere.

As he said, you'll need a glass hydrometer. It's nice if it has a built-in thermometer. I just have a $5 O'Reilly's unit and I use my infra-red, laser thermometer. Your hydrometer readings should be temp adjusted to 77 degrees F (80 is close enough for us Yanks.) I use this chart.

Always wear eye and skin protection when working around batteries... especially while equalizing.

My process...

Disconnect from the coach first!

1. Charge fully to, say 14.5V.

2. Add equalizing charge to achieve some bubbling. 1/sec, give or take for maybe 20 minutes. Now your electrolyte should be stirred with little stratification.

3. Take a hydrometer reading and record with battery temp. Then make temp adjustments to readings.

If the float is in the white or worse... then I know I might be in for a bit of a haul. But I don't want to overheat nor erode the positive plates too much, so I do it in steps.

4. Equalize charge, i.e. voltage above 16 for an hour max to be safe (I go longer if I feel it's necessary, but I don't recommend it to newbs.) Always monitor battery temperature!

A 10A, Manual Schumacher might take some time to get from "full" to over 16V. So... unless it's a hot day... I would not start counting the hour until you reach at least 16V.

Now this is a little controversial. To do it 100% correct, you should let the batteries sit for a day while all the fizz and cloudiness fades. But I say... yeah, your hydrometer readings may be off a bit due to fizz, but we're about to compare apples to apples. So... in order to save time...

5. Let them set for 20 minutes or more and take another hydrometer reading and adjust for temperature... which might be higher now.

6. I keep repeating this process until the temp-adjusted readings no longer climb. If you keep the same resting interval between stopping the charge and taking the readings... then the fizz amount should be fairly comparable, i.e. apples to apples.

7. Let your batteries rest for at least a day before hooking them back up to the coach. Ideally take a sample and make sure it's clear before using them again.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion. I'm not an expert. You would be wise to do your own research, yada yada yada.

I gave this Dack & Blecker charger to Jesús and he still borrows my HF charger. These things are toys. Play battery maintenance. Like trying to overhaul your RV engine with a Harbor Fright $4.95 socket set. If you charge a non sulfated battery with this charger until it says READY, then press the equalize button again and again and again and again and again, you will end up with a mostly charged battery. Many new Johnson Controls batteries and THIS PARTICULAR charger plus a Francis Freas hydrometer ends debate. Been there, done that. Some of the newer temperature compensated converters probably do a much better job at getting a battery past 85% charge level.

Think of it this way. Constantly "recharging" a battery to 85% level of charge is like forcing a diet on a human being that allows 85% of the absolute minimum food necessary to sustain life. It's a good parallel to use.

Idiots are practically forcing folks to purchase 5% of amp hours, capacity solar panels and then run them uncontrolled into a battery in order to get them charged.

That crummy 59 dollar ADJUSTABLE power supply I am ready to purchase will do a better job of charging a lead acid battery than a hundred dollar idiot's special. If you DEMAND to see a pretty PDF presentation of how to equalize a battery, visit the ROLLS & SURRETTE website and review their BATTERY MAINTENANCE manual. Or call Trojan. Dack & Blecker understand battery charging about as well as I understand computers and software. And I am a blithering idiot with the latter. At least I don't screw people selling things I do not understand.

judelaurenzo25g wrote:
can someone take a look at this charger and let me know if it will work for my situation.

Charger Here

While the instructions mention a desulfation mode it seems to be some automatic process vs having a desulfation button. No mention of equalizing.

Look at this charger:
http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/vec1089abd.html

Here is the manual: (see page 5 for equilizing)
http://servicenet.blackanddecker.com/documents/English/Instruction%20Manual/Vector/VEC1089ABD.pdf

can someone take a look at this charger and let me know if it will work for my situation.

Charger Here

I read the manual. 2.0 amperes is good for a 60 amp hour capacity flooded battery.

The instruction manual is hopelessly optimistic time-wise as to hours needed to equalize even a group 27 battery. Most of them I have done take 2-5 hours at a full five amps. Repeatedly cycling the equalize function of the unit will be necessary with a moderately sulfated battery. I can see four or 5 repeats in many batteries future. For something like a pair of GC-220's this charger is a waste of time as far as the equalization feature is concerned. Two amperes where 11.0 is called for is pathetic.

"After 5 desulfate cycles and the battery does not recover, recycle battery".

This is a great way to make a mistake and throw away a perfectly good battery.

Truly Plug N Pay

With modern switch charger technology it would be soooo easy to make a 5 ampere constant current device with 16.0 volt shutoff, and selectable to 11 amperes constant current with an 8.0 volt + safety time over ride shutoff.

Reminds me, I've got to get my hands on one of the new maniac IC controlled Harbor Fright chargers and perform a frontal lobotomy on it. Oh yeah, customers are complaining that the charger like almost all other intelligent chargers is abandoning the battery at 85% level of charge. Battery manufacturers must be dancing with glee at this charger marketing ploy stupidity.

PUCampin wrote:
One of my best tools has been a Vector 1097a battery charger. It has 2/10/30 A charging options at 14.4V, a desulfate function, and an equalize function at 16V. Can be found for under $100

Thanks! I must admit that it was kind of dumb of me to want to give away my money instead of using it to purchase the tools to perform the task myself. I usually do everything myself from rebuilding carburetors to plumbing but something about batteries and acid scare the crud out of me...