Very Inexpensive Battery Maintenance Charger
1.0 ampere output. 13.8 volts regulated charge limit. This unit is good for 100 amp hours worth of batteries. IMO the voltage is a tad high for a high antimony RV battery with temps 60F or higher but ...
Forum Discussion
I tried to explain in a post here the ego of a battery engineer shrieks in agony when it has to admit to a "Me Too" set of consumer instructions. Marketing doesn't like it, accounting grimaces, and top management scowls. To say corporate bound engineers are under peer pressure is something of an understatement.
Battery engineering like all engineering and science in general is a discipline. We have to live by the rules. A talented engineer learns all he can about batteries and the vagaries electro-chemical science causes. To say
I have stored a million different bits of a giant jigsaw puzzle may be an understatement. My advantage was with a rubber apron, full face gear and a saw. I must have lifted and autopsied a thousand batteries. I got so adept I could dress and have the dripping plate assemblies out in less than 2 minutes. I had a 10X 12" swing arm lens. With the plates before me the battery with held no secrets.
Every 16 battery series charge became another tidbit lesson. I measured individual battery voltage and deduced inconsistencies. One of the vendors I contracted to said "You have the concentration and dedication of a madman". He wasn't far wrong. I autopsied calcium, varying antimony percentages, and voodoo variants with so called exotic alloy additives.
Some things about batteries have common denominators. Flooded, recombinant, Gel, absorbed glass mat, they all have their universal similarities between brands.
Calcium is used as a grid material stiffener. Without a bit of stiffener not even glass mats can support the grids if a moderate shock is encountered. Flooded batteries have no such separator support so a much higher percentage of calcium or antimony must be used. But a grid is not exposed in a battery. A grid is pasted, and that paste is almost exclusively lead. Binders must be employed. The lead is micro micron size and it is a bear to prepare, rush to the grid line, and apply evenly and consistently over the entire grid assembly. A cheater's way is to use a high percentage of binder plate paste. infinitely easier to apply, it adheres better, and makes a perfectly substandard battery. The line has to be slowed w-a-y down, the plate pasting machine has to be watched like a hawk and meanwhile the clock is ticking on the usability window of high density paste.
Senor Pnichols sometimes I substitute words like "plate" instead of grid. This subject is fraught with new confusing terms and terminology and I try and aim for the average person who is interested in the real world of battery manufacturing.
Concorde battery presented a fifteen minute long presentation online of how they designed and manufacture the Lifeline. Their insistence of of "damn the cost, quality and longevity is our goal" caught my attention. So did their highlighting of laser control and verification of processes like plate pasting, then WEIGHING each treated plate to insure it was uniform to the milligram. Regular samples of Pb were on site tested for purity - the entire manufacturing process from start to finish was detailed. How their exclusive envelopes stop plate mossing shorts. The laughable comparison between .115" positive plate thickness versus competitor's .060" or .070" thickness.
They are proud of their product as is Rolls & Surrette. Trojan has their T-105 and industrial batteries.
And I have a garbage Johnson Controls battery in my toad because at the time I had zero option. Now I have the wonderful chore of spending 200 dollars to get an even more inferior Johnson Controls product. The 2nd Lifeline in the trunk is sounding better and better. Tomorrow morning I have to SEARCH for a jump start. And people wonder why I am cranky about batteries...
Battery engineering like all engineering and science in general is a discipline. We have to live by the rules. A talented engineer learns all he can about batteries and the vagaries electro-chemical science causes. To say
I have stored a million different bits of a giant jigsaw puzzle may be an understatement. My advantage was with a rubber apron, full face gear and a saw. I must have lifted and autopsied a thousand batteries. I got so adept I could dress and have the dripping plate assemblies out in less than 2 minutes. I had a 10X 12" swing arm lens. With the plates before me the battery with held no secrets.
Every 16 battery series charge became another tidbit lesson. I measured individual battery voltage and deduced inconsistencies. One of the vendors I contracted to said "You have the concentration and dedication of a madman". He wasn't far wrong. I autopsied calcium, varying antimony percentages, and voodoo variants with so called exotic alloy additives.
Some things about batteries have common denominators. Flooded, recombinant, Gel, absorbed glass mat, they all have their universal similarities between brands.
Calcium is used as a grid material stiffener. Without a bit of stiffener not even glass mats can support the grids if a moderate shock is encountered. Flooded batteries have no such separator support so a much higher percentage of calcium or antimony must be used. But a grid is not exposed in a battery. A grid is pasted, and that paste is almost exclusively lead. Binders must be employed. The lead is micro micron size and it is a bear to prepare, rush to the grid line, and apply evenly and consistently over the entire grid assembly. A cheater's way is to use a high percentage of binder plate paste. infinitely easier to apply, it adheres better, and makes a perfectly substandard battery. The line has to be slowed w-a-y down, the plate pasting machine has to be watched like a hawk and meanwhile the clock is ticking on the usability window of high density paste.
Senor Pnichols sometimes I substitute words like "plate" instead of grid. This subject is fraught with new confusing terms and terminology and I try and aim for the average person who is interested in the real world of battery manufacturing.
Concorde battery presented a fifteen minute long presentation online of how they designed and manufacture the Lifeline. Their insistence of of "damn the cost, quality and longevity is our goal" caught my attention. So did their highlighting of laser control and verification of processes like plate pasting, then WEIGHING each treated plate to insure it was uniform to the milligram. Regular samples of Pb were on site tested for purity - the entire manufacturing process from start to finish was detailed. How their exclusive envelopes stop plate mossing shorts. The laughable comparison between .115" positive plate thickness versus competitor's .060" or .070" thickness.
They are proud of their product as is Rolls & Surrette. Trojan has their T-105 and industrial batteries.
And I have a garbage Johnson Controls battery in my toad because at the time I had zero option. Now I have the wonderful chore of spending 200 dollars to get an even more inferior Johnson Controls product. The 2nd Lifeline in the trunk is sounding better and better. Tomorrow morning I have to SEARCH for a jump start. And people wonder why I am cranky about batteries...
