Forum Discussion
It's called FLEXIBILITY and REPEATABILITY.
It's easy Gordon Three.
Set charging voltage to 14.7.
Try a three hour charge. Check after 2 hours. Are the cells bubbling slightly? The battery is charged. Next time set the charger for an hour and a half. No matter what the start voltage is, it is so very easy to remember ("Three hours at starting 12.2 volts" where most folks start the recharging process.
Due to LAG and OVER-RUN not even a spot check of gravity is accurate for determining true state of charge.
To give you an idea...we had an all nighter outage a few days ago. I woke up and the 13.36 float section had limited the Lifeline to 13.45 volts.
I set the pot to 14.4 volts and wound the Intermatic to three hours of charge and walked off. Two and a half hours later the battery was sitting at 14.40 volts and amperage was .55 so I let the timer run the extra hour before the Borg defaulted to 13.27 float voltage.
Let's say the battery was a flooded one. Set the bulk charge at 14.6 volts and the timer to 3 hours. The battery should be bubbling at three hours because it did exactly that the last two times the battery was found at that state of charge.
I have to admit the guy who cannot boil eggs and needs his DW to tie his shoes for him may run into confounding issues, but then the DW should assume battery charging duty or maybe they need to vacation at the Holiday Inn if boondocking is an issue.
I can leave a battery that has reached 14.7 volts and is absorbing 3.0 amps for 8 hours and the most the battery will endure is slight bubbling in the cells. It won't hurt the battery. I can leave my Lifeline at 14.4 volts for DAYS and it won't get damaged. But WAIT THERE'S MORE! That's what shutoff timers are for.
This isn't U239 implosion theory engineering. By first LIMITING VOLTAGE the whole ballgame changes it's tune. Old fashioned battery chargers could not regulate their voltage. This is the background bogeyman that runs rampant through gossip and superstition of people who are not aware of how batteries and charging actually work.
My BORG is different because when the main timer shuts off the unit defaults to preset float voltage.
This is CONTROLLED VOLTAGE BATTERY CHARGING with a timer shutoff.
It isn't a REPLACEMENT for a converter -- it is a battery CHARGER.
Now the TRACE CHARGER ABOVE is a lot more automatic. It is set to start recharging a depleted battery. Today's CONVERTERS will blow it away for battery maintenance, but cycle that battery on vacation then no converter on the face of the earth is as east to use as something with the features of a good battery charger. BFL13's recommendation is a good charger.
It's easy Gordon Three.
Set charging voltage to 14.7.
Try a three hour charge. Check after 2 hours. Are the cells bubbling slightly? The battery is charged. Next time set the charger for an hour and a half. No matter what the start voltage is, it is so very easy to remember ("Three hours at starting 12.2 volts" where most folks start the recharging process.
Due to LAG and OVER-RUN not even a spot check of gravity is accurate for determining true state of charge.
To give you an idea...we had an all nighter outage a few days ago. I woke up and the 13.36 float section had limited the Lifeline to 13.45 volts.
I set the pot to 14.4 volts and wound the Intermatic to three hours of charge and walked off. Two and a half hours later the battery was sitting at 14.40 volts and amperage was .55 so I let the timer run the extra hour before the Borg defaulted to 13.27 float voltage.
Let's say the battery was a flooded one. Set the bulk charge at 14.6 volts and the timer to 3 hours. The battery should be bubbling at three hours because it did exactly that the last two times the battery was found at that state of charge.
I have to admit the guy who cannot boil eggs and needs his DW to tie his shoes for him may run into confounding issues, but then the DW should assume battery charging duty or maybe they need to vacation at the Holiday Inn if boondocking is an issue.
I can leave a battery that has reached 14.7 volts and is absorbing 3.0 amps for 8 hours and the most the battery will endure is slight bubbling in the cells. It won't hurt the battery. I can leave my Lifeline at 14.4 volts for DAYS and it won't get damaged. But WAIT THERE'S MORE! That's what shutoff timers are for.
This isn't U239 implosion theory engineering. By first LIMITING VOLTAGE the whole ballgame changes it's tune. Old fashioned battery chargers could not regulate their voltage. This is the background bogeyman that runs rampant through gossip and superstition of people who are not aware of how batteries and charging actually work.
My BORG is different because when the main timer shuts off the unit defaults to preset float voltage.
This is CONTROLLED VOLTAGE BATTERY CHARGING with a timer shutoff.
It isn't a REPLACEMENT for a converter -- it is a battery CHARGER.
Now the TRACE CHARGER ABOVE is a lot more automatic. It is set to start recharging a depleted battery. Today's CONVERTERS will blow it away for battery maintenance, but cycle that battery on vacation then no converter on the face of the earth is as east to use as something with the features of a good battery charger. BFL13's recommendation is a good charger.
