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hammick's avatar
hammick
Explorer
Oct 25, 2015

Help: initial charge on new Crown 330ah batteries

I have a couple new 6v Crown deep cycle 330ah deep cycle batteries. I want to do an initial charge on them. I borrowed an old school Schumacher charger from a friend that is completely manual. It has 50a, 10a and 2a settings for 12v and just 50a for 6v.

Right now I have the batteries in series at the 12v 10a setting. The voltage at the terminals is at about 14.7v. If I switch to the 50a setting the voltage rises to over 16v. What should I do. I would like to see the voltage at the 10a setting get over 15v.

Basically I would like to equalize these batteries for an initial charge. Can I do this with this charger?

Thanks.

FYI charger is Schumacher SE-2158:

Charger manual
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Oct 25, 2015
    You need an hydrometer to tell you what's what.

    Yes you should do a full recharge on new batteries which may have been sitting on the shelf getting stratified.

    A manual charger needs you there to shut it off when the battery voltage gets too high. You can shut it off when the SG reaches the spec SG for that model battery.

    The 10 a setting is fine for the situation in the OP. Just leave it there and keep an eye on voltage and SG.

    I don't see anything wrong with using any charger that will do the job when you have only a converter in the RV that only goes to 14.4v.
  • NinerBikes's avatar
    NinerBikes
    Explorer
    Oct 25, 2015
    Why don't you go to the Crown Battery website, and see what they recommend for charging procedures, volts, amps, charge rates, etc, etc. Once you find it and read it, post up the link to the website, for others to learn from.

    Borrowing a charger to charge your brand new expensive batteries is not a good idea, buy the correct, non compromised equipment you need to maintain the batteries correctly, or don't bother.

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