Forum Discussion

wopachop's avatar
wopachop
Explorer
Apr 01, 2020

12v battery tender to equalize 6v

Walked by my friends trailer the other day. Noticed the 5a battery tender was hooked to a single 6v!!! I pulled it off right away. Wish i would have measured the voltage real quick. It had already been like that overnight so whats another 3 minutes to grab a meter.

Got to thinking. Its kind of like a poor mans equalization charge. Constant 5a dumping into it. Thought it was funny and wanted to share.

I did grab a meter and tested resting it was 7.5v i think. Somewhere around there. Pretty sure i could hear them bubbling away but it was windy. Will check water level at some point.

If you had some 6v on your trailer and no ability to equalize them its not the worse idea, to me. Of course you would also have to own a battery tender. We have 4 of them here. Not the most uncommon item for campers who have offroad toys. Those are usually the guys boondocking and like the 6v.

Would agree its not the safest approach. Like the anarchist cookbook from the 80s this is for entertainment purpose only!
  • Lwiddis's avatar
    Lwiddis
    Explorer II
    Apr 01, 2020
    The “poor man’s equalization charge” exceeded the battery manufacturer’s recommended equalization volts by?

    Trojan says 7.35 volts for a six volt battery.
    https://www.trojanbattery.com/tech-support/battery-maintenance/
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Apr 02, 2020
    That is a desulfation/equalization method but you need to attend the tender.

    Many (not all) battery tenders have a desulfacation/equlize mode as well, it's automatic or supposed to be. When used on a 12 volt battery.

    If hooked to a single six volt the better battery tenders will refuse to do anything but show you a RED "Fault" light.
  • opnspaces's avatar
    opnspaces
    Navigator II
    Apr 02, 2020
    Is it possibly a dual voltage tender? Are the two batteries disconnected from each other?
  • RJsfishin's avatar
    RJsfishin
    Explorer
    Apr 03, 2020
    A 12v battery tender won't do anything on 1 6v battery. I have 2 of them.
  • landyacht318's avatar
    landyacht318
    Explorer
    Apr 03, 2020
    I've EQ's a Neighbor's pair of GC-2s in series more than once successfully with my 13 to 19 volt meanwell power supply. It did not take a huge amount of time, nor were the cells wildly out of sink with each other, they were just ~0.010 lower than I knew they could be.


    I make extensive use of voltage bucker modules and voltage booster modules and some combination buck/boost models, mostly to speed/brightness control fans or LEDs, but also for batteries different than 12v. Most of these have current limiting potentiometers too.

    One can easily follow 5 amps per 100Ah of capacity till 16v is achieved with such a bucker device, no homemade inline 12v lightbulb current limiting devices necessary.

    If charging 6v gc-2s individually were my objective, I could easily accomplish it without some 6v dedicated charging source, using a bucker, and I can and do charge 24v batteries from 12v sources too, using a booster.

    Heres a link to a 20 amp bucker with current control.

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