Couple of battery voltage & charging question
Have had an AGM battery (one) for a year now, not that being AGM necessarily matters. Never dry camp. Also bought a Progressive Dynamics converter/charger upgrade for it. Recently installed an LED ...
Forum Discussion
AGMs come in different "brands/types" which have different charging specs and resting voltages so there is no way to answer your question without knowing the exact battery you have so we can look up the specs for it--or you could do that yourself. :)
EG only, my particular AGM battery wants about 14.8v for charging and then to let it float at about 13.7v. It rests at full at 13.0v (not 12.7v like a flooded battery).
Of course you can save some battery juice by plugging in shore power and letting the converter do the work instead of the battery. How much that is "worth" depends. If you were going to spend that night on the one battery with no shore power it would be worth a lot more than if you were just about to plug in shore power.
The only way to tell if your AGM is truly full on a recharge is to check the amps it is accepting with no load on the battery, just the charger charging it. This means you need an ammeter on the job. If it does not get truly full, it will sulfate. That is accumulative, and eventually cannot be reversed by "conditioning."
IMO, the way you are operating, you might be slowly sulfating that AGM and be in the market for a new one "early" compared with somebody who is "battery conscious." That might not matter in the big picture for your budget and how you camp etc. How much "hassle" is "worth it?" Nobody knows except you.
EG only, my particular AGM battery wants about 14.8v for charging and then to let it float at about 13.7v. It rests at full at 13.0v (not 12.7v like a flooded battery).
Of course you can save some battery juice by plugging in shore power and letting the converter do the work instead of the battery. How much that is "worth" depends. If you were going to spend that night on the one battery with no shore power it would be worth a lot more than if you were just about to plug in shore power.
The only way to tell if your AGM is truly full on a recharge is to check the amps it is accepting with no load on the battery, just the charger charging it. This means you need an ammeter on the job. If it does not get truly full, it will sulfate. That is accumulative, and eventually cannot be reversed by "conditioning."
IMO, the way you are operating, you might be slowly sulfating that AGM and be in the market for a new one "early" compared with somebody who is "battery conscious." That might not matter in the big picture for your budget and how you camp etc. How much "hassle" is "worth it?" Nobody knows except you.
