[AT] OT Battery Chargers

[ken knierim]

On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 14:27, kreig wrote:
> I am new to this thread so sorry if i mised something.
> 
> I recently purchased a 1.5 volt maintenance charger (Sears and certainly not 
> my favorite store) and found great success with this model.  It charges and 
> maintains either 6 or 12 volt batteries and can be a portable unit or a 
> permanantly installed.  I like this model over all others I found because it 
> is well designed and "IT WORKS!!"  $29
> 
> It seems all the new computerized chargers cannot identify a dead battery. 
> Both of my automatic chargers say a dead battery is fully charged when in 
> fact it is dead.  I go to my Big charger for flat batteries and "jump start" 
> them at 50+ amps for a short time. After this, an automatic charger seems to 
> work ok.
> 
> Kreig
> 
> 

The computer controlled chargers measure the voltage on the battery
before they apply much for power, from my limited experience (I'm sure
chargers vary). By adding something in parallel (battery, resistor, etc)
you can fool some of them. 

I had this issue when attempting to charge a battery that had been
sitting awhile and was stone-dead. It wouldn't take a charge with
anything I had so I hooked it up backwards and charged it (it took
THAT). Then I discharged it (had a spotlight that I jumpered)
completely. Then when I hooked up the charger, it (the automatic
charger) got right with the program and charged it up. The reversed
battery was something someone here pointed out awhile back, it seems to
work well in some cases. 

Your mileage may vary but if it's totally dead and won't take a charge,
you're not out anything.

Ken