Charging the Lifelines questions
As you all know, anything more than clipping the auto charger onto a battery is well above my pay grade, so I have some questions. For the regular charge before the conditioning charge, the Lifelin...
Forum Discussion
As usual. :)
The "What If's" has taken the subject down-the-bunny-trail. Radical conditioning is NOT normal except in a much abused AGM. Because the Lifeline is so well made you can consider it to act like a Rolls battery: tougher to sulfate and light years easier to recover. The tech manual for the Lifeline is really for savvy distributors and engineers who are forced to deal with abused AGMs or consumers who thrash their batteries. Again the manual exhudes ultra-precise perfectionism and ALL of Concorde's information can be applied to any AGM battery. Batteries with .040" THINNER plates of course will NOT survive mistreatment as well as a higher quality thick plate battery. Again exactly why a Rolls battery survives and lesser batteries go belly-up.
Jim, your magic silver bullet is the MegaWatt. It is going to eliminate problems that a too-low of charge rate effects upon an AGM. Treated right an AGM should never need conditioning. No carbon pile, no impedance meter. Threads always seem to bear toward extrapolations and polarity of extremes which are not occurances normally encountered. In effect I fall prey to the same extremes as does the Lifeline Manual. Trending theoreticals which get misinterpreted as being "The Norm" when in fact the extremes are in reality, screwball abnormal.
For instance CHRONIC UNDERCHARGING does not mean NOT COMPLETELY RECHARGING on a two or three week vacation. When reconnected to long-term power the battery should see 14.4 volts absorbsion for a few hours not a few minutes. Those goddamned smart charger charging profiles cause more problems than a person would imagine because they cannot think. The are purely robotic products of general assumption. Permitting an AGM to remain at 14.4 volts for a few hours after "Two weeks of 40/90 charging" recovers the battery completely. Fourteen point four volts - a tiny bit higher than automotive alternator charging system voltage. A few hours. I use an Intermatic spring-wound timer. Lazy and foolproof. But a perfect fool can rationize a scenario that calls that into question publically.
When in doubt
Charge the battery at 14.4 volts for a longer period of time. If you find after two weeks of floating at the correct voltage the battery charging AMPERAGE jumps abnormally high for too long a period when a trial 14.4 volt zap is applied, return the battery to 14.4 volts for a couple of hours. Can you see WHY I love the MegaWatt. It puts on a different hat and plays the part of a diagnostic tool.
Battery management is SIMPLE with the right stuff and the right stuff is not plug & pay. It is so easy and time thrifty it is almost embarassing. One minute a day would be lavishing attention on my AGMs. Let them float and 14.4 volt zap them every third week. A normal zap proofing takes 5-seconds. People that think this is too much "bother" would be better off, Ringing Down For Room Service.
The "What If's" has taken the subject down-the-bunny-trail. Radical conditioning is NOT normal except in a much abused AGM. Because the Lifeline is so well made you can consider it to act like a Rolls battery: tougher to sulfate and light years easier to recover. The tech manual for the Lifeline is really for savvy distributors and engineers who are forced to deal with abused AGMs or consumers who thrash their batteries. Again the manual exhudes ultra-precise perfectionism and ALL of Concorde's information can be applied to any AGM battery. Batteries with .040" THINNER plates of course will NOT survive mistreatment as well as a higher quality thick plate battery. Again exactly why a Rolls battery survives and lesser batteries go belly-up.
Jim, your magic silver bullet is the MegaWatt. It is going to eliminate problems that a too-low of charge rate effects upon an AGM. Treated right an AGM should never need conditioning. No carbon pile, no impedance meter. Threads always seem to bear toward extrapolations and polarity of extremes which are not occurances normally encountered. In effect I fall prey to the same extremes as does the Lifeline Manual. Trending theoreticals which get misinterpreted as being "The Norm" when in fact the extremes are in reality, screwball abnormal.
For instance CHRONIC UNDERCHARGING does not mean NOT COMPLETELY RECHARGING on a two or three week vacation. When reconnected to long-term power the battery should see 14.4 volts absorbsion for a few hours not a few minutes. Those goddamned smart charger charging profiles cause more problems than a person would imagine because they cannot think. The are purely robotic products of general assumption. Permitting an AGM to remain at 14.4 volts for a few hours after "Two weeks of 40/90 charging" recovers the battery completely. Fourteen point four volts - a tiny bit higher than automotive alternator charging system voltage. A few hours. I use an Intermatic spring-wound timer. Lazy and foolproof. But a perfect fool can rationize a scenario that calls that into question publically.
When in doubt
Charge the battery at 14.4 volts for a longer period of time. If you find after two weeks of floating at the correct voltage the battery charging AMPERAGE jumps abnormally high for too long a period when a trial 14.4 volt zap is applied, return the battery to 14.4 volts for a couple of hours. Can you see WHY I love the MegaWatt. It puts on a different hat and plays the part of a diagnostic tool.
Battery management is SIMPLE with the right stuff and the right stuff is not plug & pay. It is so easy and time thrifty it is almost embarassing. One minute a day would be lavishing attention on my AGMs. Let them float and 14.4 volt zap them every third week. A normal zap proofing takes 5-seconds. People that think this is too much "bother" would be better off, Ringing Down For Room Service.
