Battery and charger
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- T'Onion
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Battery and charger
Ok how long should you leave a battery on charge ?
can i just leave it on charge for a few days or will it damage the cells ?
leisure not car BTW
can i just leave it on charge for a few days or will it damage the cells ?
leisure not car BTW
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Alright T'Onion
IMHO any half decent battery charger will detect a charged battery and act accordingly, ie hold back on charging until a charge is required. So keeps battery at optimum charge. Differences between leisure/normal batterys shouldn't make any difference?
Kefty
IMHO any half decent battery charger will detect a charged battery and act accordingly, ie hold back on charging until a charge is required. So keeps battery at optimum charge. Differences between leisure/normal batterys shouldn't make any difference?
Kefty
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- Dan Wood
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Assuming your battery is a proper wet lead-acid thing and not a 'gel' type then leaving it on charge for a few days shouldn't do it any harm.
As Kefty says, most modern chargers will detect the state of the battery and switch to a 'float' charge that will keep the battery topped up, without overcharging it.
If it's a very old pre-historic "transformer+rectifier" charger then it might go a bit too far. Open circuit voltage on these can be a bit on the high side, and with no regulator the voltage will keep going up and up. Even then, the battery will draw less and less current, so I'd guess that over a few days all you'll do is dry it out a bit and it might need a top-up with distilled water. There's not much in the chemistry of these that can go wrong with overcharging. (Unlike Ni-Cd batteries that will get warm and lose capacity with overcharging.)
So, as long as it's well ventilated I'd leave it on and not worry. (Overcharging will cause gassing... Explosive Hydrogen!)
Have you got a plug in timer or something you could stick on the charger to shut it off if you're not going to be around?
Or, if you are going to be around, and have an accurate voltmeter just check the voltage across the battery and shut it off if the voltage rises above say 15 volts.
As Kefty says, most modern chargers will detect the state of the battery and switch to a 'float' charge that will keep the battery topped up, without overcharging it.
If it's a very old pre-historic "transformer+rectifier" charger then it might go a bit too far. Open circuit voltage on these can be a bit on the high side, and with no regulator the voltage will keep going up and up. Even then, the battery will draw less and less current, so I'd guess that over a few days all you'll do is dry it out a bit and it might need a top-up with distilled water. There's not much in the chemistry of these that can go wrong with overcharging. (Unlike Ni-Cd batteries that will get warm and lose capacity with overcharging.)
So, as long as it's well ventilated I'd leave it on and not worry. (Overcharging will cause gassing... Explosive Hydrogen!)
Have you got a plug in timer or something you could stick on the charger to shut it off if you're not going to be around?
Or, if you are going to be around, and have an accurate voltmeter just check the voltage across the battery and shut it off if the voltage rises above say 15 volts.
- Bowton Lad
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Battery and Charger
Dan Wood wrote: Or, if you are going to be around, and have an accurate voltmeter just check the voltage across the battery and shut it off if the voltage rises above say 15 volts.
What's wrong with a good old fashioned hydrometer?
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- Dan Wood
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Re: Battery and Charger
Bowton Lad wrote:What's wrong with a good old fashioned hydrometer?
This is T'Onion we're talking about. He'd only go and use a hydrometer for making beer...
- T'Onion
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Re: Battery and Charger
things are that bad yet , i'll stick to drinking beer rather than making itDan Wood wrote:Bowton Lad wrote:What's wrong with a good old fashioned hydrometer?
This is T'Onion we're talking about. He'd only go and use a hydrometer for making beer...
victus in mutuo vicis
Ego mori tu mori
Ego mori tu mori
- Dan Wood
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T'Onion wrote: so how long should a flat 110 amp leisure take to charge
Depends on how much current your charger can kick out I suppose...
Let's assume about 6 Amps....
Assume you'll get 75% stored of what you pump in (lead-acid batteries aren't that efficient you see...)
So you need to push in about 147 Ah which will take just over 24 hours.
What tends to happen though is that current will fall off as charging progresses so it will probably take a bit longer to squeeze the last bit in.
Still plenty of time before pickyring...
- Dan Wood
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T'Onion wrote:its been on for 48 hrs now , its holding the charge ,
the charger i have has four leds on it , so when the four lights are on its charged , only got two on at the mo ... i'll just leave it bubbling away
Have ya got a voltmeter to stick across it? It might be bubbling away 'cos it's full and all the extra energy is just being used to dry the thing out!