Battery charging

[Robbo_Townsville]

Hi, recently I purchased a 4 stage 16a battery charger. When charging it has a
25-100 amp hr setting and a 100-200 amp hr setting and this is where I am stuck. My batteries are Century Marine Pro 500 CCA. Is 500 Cold Crank Amps in the 25-100 amp hr range or in the 100-200 amp hr range.

P.S I have always taken the batteries out when charging and I remove the vent caps. I read today on the net somewhere suggesting to keep the vent caps in. Whats your normal procedure?

Cheers

Robbo

[Sniper]

500 is the cca rating, cold cranking amp. On the battery it will have the amp/hr rating. By memory it is 85amp/hr, but could be wrong. I'd day set your charger to suit about 85amp/hour and you should be right. I would also leave the caps on as they have vents in them anyway, and it will keep dust and crap out. Same as when you are running your motor, your alternator is charging the battery, and the caps are on.
Hope this helps
Bill

[rayken1938]

The idea of having the caps off is so that the explosive hydrogen gas can escape quickly.
Never disconnect of connect charger whilst turned onas you run a good chance of a big bang and a face full of acid and particles of battery case.
Cheers
Ray

[oldboot]

Have you lifted this battery?...... do you have a hernia?;D ;D ;D its probly under 100 AH;D

Basicly if the battery is about the size of a car batyery or just a bit bigger you can be sure that its under 100ah.....anything over 120 Ah will be one big chunk of battery.

the below 100 would be a safe guess anyway.

the reason to remove the caps, in the old days is because you would generaly be charging at a high rate and the battery would " gass freely" when fully charged.......the vents in the caps might be a bit small....... besides how can you know that the battery is gassing freely if you cant see inside;D


Seriously though, I've been charging batteries with the caps on for years and no problems.

your new funky charger, should controll the charge rate so the battery should never gas excessivly.

cheers

[Robbo_Townsville]

Thanks fellas.

Robbo