Flooded Batteries on Float

If self- discharge shows in amps, and your Float is perfect to replace that, would the meter show any amps going in or would it show "net" of zero amps?

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Take a peek with a DMM milliamp meter Mena. Allow .030 ampere per 6 cells for a car jar battery and around .050 for your L16's

Thanks MEX! I will try this out this weekend and post back.

I must have retarded lead acid batteries, or a crappy charger. I've never seen a car jar take 0 amps. It seems that it will always try to take something. The lower that something is, the less the battery generates in water loss, but given enough volts, they will get some amps forced into them, which I assume ends up as resistance in the electrolyte, and heat being generated, and micro tiny bubbles floating up to the surface.


At least, that's been my observation, someone correct me if I am wrong, or my eyes and ears are bad. I was a lot younger back in the days of being a Sears Diehard battery and power train tester/installer in the late 1970's, I may have forgotten a few things since then.

Take a peek with a DMM milliamp meter Mena. Allow .030 ampere per 6 cells for a car jar battery and around .050 for your L16's

This is yet another reference test you can reuse down the road. I have a milliamp meter and DPDT momentary switch on my Rolls. With a 1 amp fast blow breaker just in case. When you are convinced the batteries are hibernating verify with a milliamp reading. This stops dead in its tracks unseen problems because chargers compensate for voltage. Put the milliamp meter PARALLEL switched in the charge lead line. I placed my switch and meter in an out of the way location for good reason (Oooooooops!)

BFL13 makes a good point. Float counteracts self-discharge so the meter reading could be misleading. There would have to be amps going in I would think.

I just took a peek at mine, .30a @ 13.3v but that is w/ 1 led lite on all the time.

Hi,

My 12 volts but rarely show zero amps going in from the solar system. It does happen eventually.

pnichols wrote:

Now ... do wets ever reach an accurate hard stop also on bulk charging voltages like my AGMs do ... or do wets gurgle on bulk voltages even if they don't on float voltages? I ask this question because once my AGMs are fully charged, they don't care what voltage I place on them ... the ammeter still thinks they're drawing zero current. :h

Mine only bubble and gurgle with an overcharge (over 15V). Not sure why yours did with less voltage. Also, not sure why yours "hard stop". I've pumped amps into my full ATV AGMs before easily. Sure it was a trickle (as with full wets) but some went in. If I turned up the voltage on them then more amps went in. No idea with yours there either. Sounds like a job for MEX!

All I know is, way back in the Age of the Dinosaurs when I used good ol' wets and let them sit for days hooked up to a Sears 2 amp trickle charger, the wets would gurgle for ever and the analog ammeter needle would never hit zero. I'd put my ear on the side of the battery case and hear the gurgling and wonder ... WHEN IS IT EVER GOING TO STOP?

Now, at the Dawn of the Lithium Age my AGMs never gurgle and my three-place digital ammeter eventually gets to the place where it thinks that it's reading the same inaccurate zero amps day after day. Maybe my AGMs don't reach a hard stop - maybe they only reach a soft trickle and I don't know it.

Now ... do wets ever reach an accurate hard stop also on bulk charging voltages like my AGMs do ... or do wets gurgle on bulk voltages even if they don't on float voltages? I ask this question because once my AGMs are fully charged, they don't care what voltage I place on them ... the ammeter still thinks they're drawing zero current. :h

BFL13 wrote:

Of course mena's brain may be permanently fried from living where he does among the Gila Monsters and Sidewinders in all that heat, so he may be deluded. :)

LOL! Well thank you for sharing in my delusion!