Battery Charging

[imagineer]

Guys,
I am somewhat confused on this. :-[
I have a 12 volt CCA600 RC135.

What battery charger would be recommended.
I have a charger that says it should not be used on anything over 120AH.


HuH?? :-/

Thanks For replys in advance.

Regards,
Neil

[Roughasguts]

Hi Neil,
So How many Amps can your battery charger put out.??

I would use a min 6 Amp charger but prefer a 8 Amp for occasional use.

Don't know if this helps CCA 600 means.
Cold Cranking Amps, the discharge load the battery can put out, for 30 seconds while maintaining the voltage above 7.2 volts. At 18 deg C

RC135 is Reserve Capacity, or Amp hour capacity.
(Yes a 135 Amp battery higher than your chargers recomendations).
Which means a fully charged battery in your case can discharge for 135 Mins at a constant 25 Amps until the voltage falls below 10.5 volts.

I know I haven't answered your question but if you can push out a charge over 6 Amps I would give it a go, provided the charger had plenty of Air ventalation.

I have never looked, or checked or seen for that matter a limitation out put recomendation on a battery charger.

[imagineer]

Thanks Rough,

I have been doing some reading this morning out of curiosity, and it seems the lower the charge the better for the battery.

It is a matter of nescessity to how long you are happy to wait.

From the wind blowing here at welly pt I can wait quite a while ;)

I was surprised how technical batteries can be.

Thanks again

Neil

[Brissyguy]

Trickle charge is much better than a high boost charge.

When my charger gets close to fully charging a battery it automatically drops back to 2A.

Rich.

[wessel]

Correct me if I am wrong, but too high a charging rate will physically buckle the plates in a battery thereby rendering the battery useless. Trickle charge over a longer time period envolves less heat, which in turn is less chance of the plates buckling and less hydrogen being produced. (Only a problem in big commercial setups, not with your average guy who charges at the most two batteries at a time.)

Wessel

[Roughasguts]

I guess that depends on what you call a big charging rate.

10- 20 Amps is quite a small charge rate, in the scheme of things.
And this bubbling stuff is good for reducing the sulphation whick kills batteries as well. (sediment down the bottom)
Most home chargers are Auto 6-8 Amp and reduce the out put untill fully charged, A 4 Amp battery charger is a toy.

But it is better to have a low long charge for a deep cycle battery.

But consider this if you ever get a jump start on your car battery, or have trouble starting on a cold morning.

Guess how many Amps will be going in to your battery when your car gets started. Your Alternator can wack out some big Amps.

Same with your boat, every time you start, if you have a Amp gauge you will see just after start an initial charge of 30- 50 Amps. And hopfully dropping back to
5 Amps or less within 20 Mins, If it doesn't drop back in around that time replace your battery, it's soon going to let you down.

Heres a tip after a few hours of charging check to see if all the cells are bubbling at the same rate, if one cell is not bubbling that cell is dead, and the battery will never reach full charge.

If 2 cells are dead you will be lucky to get the motor started, Replace battery.

[PADDLES]

adding a bit more to what the rough one has said here. what he's saying is pretty much bang on, but remember that it's the battery that's controlling things here, it's the big sponge that's absorbing charge. if it needs it, it'll absorb whatever you can give it (governed by the capacity of your charging system) that's why directly after starting it'll take a huge spike of current to replace the loss of energy from cranking the motor over and then it'll drop off. most good chargers will detect the drop in load from the battery and either restrict the output current or instigate a charging cycle (where it turns itself off for a while and then cycles itself back on). i reckon the general rule of thumb is to charge them the way they are intended to be used. ie. a starting battery is intended to supply huge amounts of load for short times and then be charged rapidly and then left on a trickle or cycle charge. a deep cycle is intended to supply smaller loads (than straight cranking type loads) over a longer period of time and should be charged more slowly over a longer time. simple maths will let you figure out some rough charging times (assuming isaac newton was correct in assuming energy cannot be created or destroyed) basically energy out plus some slight losses must equal energy in. so if you know you have a demand of say 1Ah and use this device for 10 hours then you've gotta put 10Ah of energy back in which could be charging for 4 hours at 2.5A say. most good chargers though will do it all for you. :)