Kbahra

Hi ,
i'm not driving my car for 5 winter months.
Can i connect the 2A trickle charger to the battery without disconnecting the battery?

I'd like to do this to avoid resetting the stereo code

Tnx
KB

lilsid112

iTrader: (7)

There will be no problem leaving the battery in the car and adding the trickle charger to it.

erdoc48

I'd use a Battery Tender:


I use one of these on my bike as well as MR2 Spyder that's stored in the winter. I'd place the pigtail on the battery terminals, then plug in the device (the pigtail can stay on the terminals indefinitely).

lilsid112

iTrader: (7)

^^ That's actually the same one my father and I use.

350

iTrader: (4)

I keep a Battery Tender Jr hooked up to my Impala year round, zero issues, and the battery seems good as new every time I got out with it.

I hate cars

Any opinions on using a desulphating charger without disconnecting it from the car? I'm wondering if the desulphating process with its voltage spikes can harm the electronics.

dcmodels

There is not a 100% safe response to your question. Generally there will be no problem, but it really depends on which charger you use, and the specific vehicle. Before purchasing the specific charger that I use, I downloaded the instruction ‘manual’ from the web site, and actually read it. I have used that charger for over 100 hours on my Acura 2009 RDX, and over 200 hours on my Chevy 1998 4x4 V6. Neither vehicle is driven regularly enough, or on long enough trips, to keep the battery charged.

This is a nominal 1-amp trickle desulfating charger, the cheapest one I could find that I thought would work for my vehicles – and I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, which is only relevant in the sense that I can actually understand the simplistic instructions provided with my charger, and the other chargers that I considered.

The basic concerns with using a desulfating battery are:

1) do not use when the battery is hot, as most chargers should not be used when the battery is warmer than 125 degrees, as that can damage the battery. My charger specifically cautions against that use. That just means that after driving the vehicle, especially in the summer, you should open the hood and let the battery cool off. But there are some chargers that can be used when the battery is 125 degrees or more – the instruction sheet or advertisement info should make that clear. In the link below, where I discuss my own charger, I did not mention this limitation for some reason.

2) the charger *must* specifically state that the charger can be connected to a battery that has *not* been disconnected from the vehicle. And if there are exceptions, they will hopefully be stated in the instruction sheet. And there are definitely some exceptions stated by some of the chargers that I considered. Some chargers specifically stated that the battery being charged must be disconnected from the vehicle.

3) the charger *must* specifically state that the charger can be left connected indefinitely. Otherwise, you risk overcharging and damaging the battery, yes, even with a trickle charger. I have an old 1-amp trickle charger, and it specifically cautions against indefinite connection to a battery. I have carefully read the label on some trickle chargers at auto parts stores, and I definitely would *not* leave one of these connected indefinitely, because it is clear from the label, that can damage the battery.

4) the charger that I use peaks at 14.4 volts, and that is high enough to trigger some accessories in some vehicles, which would then pull enough amps to fry the charger, and who knows what else? At best it would run down the battery. Yes, there are some accessories in some vehicles, that can be triggered “on”, even with the ignition switch “off”. Generally these would be aftermarket accessories, and would depend upon the wiring setup.

The following link may not entirely answer your question, but there is more information:
LINK: How to Care for Your Battery – SMART CHARGERS, post #9, scroll down to the section EXCEPTIONS TO THE TEST PROCEDURE, in particular.
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13847694&posted=1#post13847694

Jesstzn

^^^^ x 2 .. a continuous trickle charger can actually boil the battery dry ... the Tender only supplys whats needed when its needed .. I have had one on my TL for the winter months fot 5 years now .

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

question: for those running a battery tender on their cars...how long does it take to fully charge the battery? i recently just put one on my TL...the car starts fine and the battery is about a year old, but maybe driven once a week for about 45 minutes at a time. the tender has been "charging" for over 20hrs now, and hasn't even reached the blinky green light yet indicating 80% charged. i've read it can take up to 3 days to get it to green, but that's on a discharged battery. what are everyone else's experiences? TIA.

ZOMGVTEK

Charge time depends on the batteries condition/state and the chargers current/charge profile.

A slow charge is going to be best, and most battery maintainers are about 1-1.5A, which is extremely low current for a big battery. It's possible the little charger will never bring a big battery in poor condition up to what it considers 'full' charge. The vast majority of people poorly maintain a car battery. If the car starts, thats all that most people care about. This does not indicate very much about it's state, and cars don't 'fully' charge a battery, ever. They simply never reach a high enough voltage for long enough to fully charge, even if you drive 24 hours straight. Periodic overnight trickle charging can likely double the useful life of a car battery.

In most situations, I would expect a little charger to go green after 24-48 hours of charging. It's probably never going to be under 12 unless you just took the thing off the charger.

lostang

i use a battery tender jr. on my tl that is currently in garage for winter. no problem what so ever.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...atttender.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...tttender1.jpg/

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

certainly i wouldn't expect it to be at 100%, but one would think you'd be able to get up to 90% or so. i'll try and be patient.

^^that's the same one i put on my TL. do you remember how long it took to go green when you first installed?

lostang

about a day maybe a little less.

Jesstzn

Your normal ... just remember its not only charging the battery but keeping up with the electronics that are constantly running in the car.


Mine will go a day + .

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

^^ok...i figured there is going to be a little bit of drain from keeping the electronics running and the charger has to not only overcome that but also top off the battery. i'll keep an eye out for the next few days and see what happens. thanks!

ZOMGVTEK

It has next to nothing to do with the parasitic draw of the car, that should be EXTREMELY low under normal circumstances. The reason why it takes that long is the battery tech itself. PB batteries have barely changed in over 100 years. They have very poor charge efficiency, comparatively high self discharge, and are prone to sulfating while sitting partially discharged. They work fine when maintained, are quite safe, and are typically extremely cheap for the current capability.

It's relatively quick to get the battery charged mostly up, but with PB batteries is critical to get them as close to '100%' as possible without seriously boiling away the electrolyte. With a 1.5A charger and a big car starting battery, this takes a LONG time. This 90% level you speak of is really just some sort of arbitrary voltage level programmed into the charger. It's most likely meaningless and not indicative of SOC or remaining charge time.

This is a fairly good document. The graph on the second page shows typical charge curves. Since the capacity of the battery is unknown to the charger, it's charge state is nearly unknown until the voltage starts rapidly rising when its full.
http://www.scubaengineer.com/documen...ing_graphs.pdf

It's absolutely nothing like your small electronics that use substantially more advanced chargers, and typically have very high charge efficiencies irrespective of state.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

^^ok, so what you are saying is i need to be patient and let the battery tender do it's business for the next few days.

basic terms: car batteries are not efficient at rapid charging b/c it can cause damage hence slow charge (trickle chargers or smart chargers) are recommended to maintain battery health. i've read a few things on the web on car batteries and charging them very similar to the link you posted.

i say the 90% pretty much as you stated, an arbitrary number just to make things a little more understandable without too much technical jargon.

thanks for the explanation. memories from my physics courses are getting stirred up...a subject i really didn't enjoy all that much. lol.

dcmodels

You can find the answers to most of your questions in the link listed at the end of post #7 above in this thread, see post #10 in the linked thread.

A sulfated battery, even one that is only slightly sulfated, will not accept a full charge no matter what charger is used. The battery will accept as much charge as it 'can', then it must be desulfated before it will accept a full charge. That is the purpose of a desulfating charger.

The desulfating charger that I used on my RDX and Chevy batteries, basically took around 20-30 hours, the first time, before the charger went into 'desulfate-mode', meaning the batteries had accepted as much charge as they were capable of accepting, in their sulfated state. Subsequent charging cycles took less time before entering desulfate mode.

The RDX battery took a total of about 3 weeks of charging to basically reach 95% charged. That is 3 x 7 x 24 = about 500 hours. The Chevy battery took about 4 weeks to desulfate. Then it was accidentally totaly discharged because of a problem with the Chevy electricals. But the charger was able to recover the battery in an additional 2 weeks of charging, which surprised me. I expected to purchase another battery.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

i did read over that info in that link you posted above. it's very informative. so with the battery tender i have on the TL right now...it's just going to take a while (a few days to a few weeks) depending on the state of that battery.

ZOMGVTEK

Well, if the charger is undersized enough its entirely possible it will never say '100%' charged and throw a little green light on. With a very big battery and a very little charger, it might just not have the grunt to clean the plates off.

Good deulfating can be done much, much faster than weeks. However, it will require a serious charger, the battery to be removed, and likely some sort of supervision. Probably why this type of charger is generally limited to small units and DIY breaker trippers.

With a standard charger, it will probably take about 1-3 days to say charged.

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

we have a solid green light! i checked before i left the house this AM it was blinking green. now it's a solid green. so it must have swtiched over to blinky green overnight sometime. so...we'll say it took about 42 hrs to get a solid green.

Jesstzn

See .. told you BTW check your terminals for clean .. that will have a bearing on it too ...

TLtrigirl

iTrader: (1)

terminals are clean....i checked that when i installed the pigtails.

the body shop manager actually painted the terminals to minimize corrosion when he swapped out my battery for me when i had her over at their place for a bumper thing.

I hate cars

I forgot about this thread, lots of good info. I totally forgot about getting a desulphating charger. Is there a certain brand that's recommended regardless of price, keeping in mind I'm running a Diehard Platinum AGM battery? I doubt it would ever b necessary but I can tap into the 220 if needed but I doubt I'll have any issues with breakers on 110.

I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons right now. I drive 1.5 to 2 miles from home to work and work to home and that's usually it during the week. So there's one plus for a tender. It's an AGM that some believe can either be overcharged or charged too aggressively by the vehicles charging system. There's a potential negative, maybe. I do a lot of idling while tuning the stereo system which can consume 2500 watts (70% of that is on the front stage so I'm not some wannabe teenage bass head) but due to the total system efficiency it's usually consuming under 100w as a whole. The potential is there for high consumption but its usually no more than running a couple accessories.

Any thoughts?

dcmodels

I can recommend the brand that I use. The specific BatteryMINDer PLUS model 12117 that I have can be used for the AGM type batteries, but the company also makes a specific model 12118 for AGM type batteries. The float (de-sulfating) voltage for the 12117 is 13.4v and the 12118 is 13.7volts

Read the link in my post #7 above in this thread, see post #9 and #10 in the linked thread. Then decide for yourself.

I am sure that there is more than one brand that will work for you, but I chose the brand that I purchased based upon a large number of online posts that I read about various brands and models.

dcmodels

My 1amp smart-charger will de-sulfate a heavily sulfated battery, to like-new condition, assuming no physical damage. But it can take up to 4 weeks to do so. But it will not desulfate a battery with a voltage below 10.5 volts.

A charger does not indicate the SOC (state of charge) of a battery. A 100% fully charged Lead battery has a nominal voltage of 12.65 volts at 80 degrees, depending upon the type of battery and manufacturer's specification. There are conversion tables for measuring voltage at temps other than 80 degrees.

Or you can use a hydrometer to test the battery - 100% full SOC specification also depends upon battery type, battery-acid temp, etc.

A battery charger can only indicate if the battery has accepted the max charge it can accept, at the current level (pun intended) of sulfation. And every battery, including a brand new one, has some level of sulfation, if it has been sitting for even a few weeks.


Most of the manufacturers making trickle level (1amp) chargers also make 'faster' desulfating chargers, as noted by ZOMGVTEK. They cost a lot more, but are very handy if you do not want to wait a long time to de-sulfate your battery.

A 'standard' charger can be dangerous for your battery, as it will damage the battery if left connected for long periods.

A 'smart' electronic controlled de-sulfating battery can be left connected indefinitely. But it will *never* tell you if the battery has been completely de-sulfated. That would mean the battery has a 100% charge level, or SOC (state of charge).

SOC can only be determined by a voltage test or check with a hydrometer.

I hate cars

Thank you!

One last thing, I'm sure no one will see it tonight but I just put mine on the charger, a 2 amp setting on a cheap charger just for the heck of it. I wake up early and it will only get about 6hrs total charge. Hopefully I don't burn the house down lol.

leedogg

perhaps a dumb question, but what are the differences between a smart trickle charger and a tender? If I just wanted to maintain/prolong battery life (optima yellow top deep cycle), what should I go with?

dcmodels

none - just different names/ terminology


Read the data provided by the various manufs, and decide. The suggestion that I have already made will also work for a marine Deep Cycle battery. And I also provided a link for more info.

I think that some manufs also make a specific model for deep cycle type batteries, but I don't know if they are really any different from the other models.

I purchased my charger online, not for the price, but because I could not find what I wanted at the local parts store.

leedogg

Ok so it looks like the primary difference between the tender and the model you suggest (aside from higher amps) is the ability to desulfate a battery which helps 'restore life'?

dcmodels

No, to my best understanding there is no 'technical' difference - both are supposed to desulfate a battery, each is manufactured by different companies. This should be clear from reading the marketing info provided by the makers. There are certainly differences in the *descriptions* of the two chargers.

And if I remember correctly, there is no real difference in the amps provided by either charger.

But AGAIN, you really need to read *all* of what the specific manufacturer says about each specific model that they sell, to best choose what you need. I have provided info about the charger that I purchased, and given my own reasoning for doing so.

Every manufacturer that I investigated had a web site, with complete details on every model that they sell. Some even had complete instruction manuals that can be downloaded, for each model.

If you just want a suggestion, you already have some from this thread.

leedogg

I do believe the "Junior" model the folks above are using has a lower amp than the "Plus" model from what I pulled from amazon


Charger Models Output Voltage Output Current(Amps) Charging Software*/ Battery Type AC Voltage/ Frequency Input
Battery Tender Junior 12V Battery Charger 12V 0.750A 4 Step STD & AGM 120 VAC, 60 Hz
Battery Tender Plus 12V Battery Charger 12V 1.25A 4 Step STD & AGM 120 VAC, 60 Hz

Vs the minder
BatteryMINDer Model 12117: 12 Volt 1.33 Amp (12V 1.33A) Charger/Maintainer/Desulfator

So if you're saying they both use the same 'technical' process (aside from whatever software logic either device uses), then essentially my decision is whether to go with a fast charger or a slow charger. Any pros/cons to a high/low amp aside from recharge speed?

ZOMGVTEK

Don't get a .75A charger for a car battery. That's WAY better suited for a motorcycle, PWC, etc...

1-2A is a good 'maintainer' for a car battery. 1.25A isn't a very fast charge at all. It's literally going to take 1-3 days to fully charge a decent condition car battery.

A very high current (20-50A) charger can have some benefit until the electrolyte starts boiling, but after that slow charge for absorption. A desulfating charger somewhat operates on this principle and just continuously passes current through the battery irrespective of SOC. It's desulfation is typically AC, so the battery can't overcharge as the average voltage differential is zero.

The benefit to using a small desulfating charger isn't very big. Just topping off the battery every month or two with a quality charger is going to do wonders to extend its life.

dcmodels

I simply meant to say that both chargers that you have inquired about, are desulfating 'trickle' amp level chargers. As for the actual operation, I found around 10 different companies selling desulfating chargers, and each had their own different software/ hardware process, or so they all say - is that just advertising? I do not know.

Here are the actual specs for the BatteryMINDer 12117, taken from the web site, the instruction manual, and as I posted in the link provided earlier for my thread on battery maintenance:
****
This model [ed: 12117] charger can be used with both flooded lead-acid (and variants), as well as the AGM-dry or Gel (Optima, etc.) type. Note that this manufacturer also makes a specific charger model for the AGM type of battery, model #12118.

The specifications for the model #12117 are that it will not charge a battery with a voltage of less than 10.5 volts. The charger has an output of 1.33 amps when the battery voltage is 10.5 volts, and an output of 1 amp at 12.0 volts. And an output of 5mA to 200mA during maintenance mode, after the battery has reached a full charge.

Charge mode output is 14.4 volts. Maintenance [ed: desulfation] mode output is 13.4 volts. LED lights indicate the current charger mode.
****

There are fast-charging models that also have a desulfating and maintenance mode. These are as safe as the small models, but often require removal of the car battery from the car - depends upon the manuf and model of charger.

No other type of charger is safe to use, in my considered opinion. That is because there is simply no [easy] way to determine the true SOC of the battery, and how long it is safe to connect a charger. Battery maintenance shops, and yes, there are such places, have special procedures to prevent overcharging and damaging the batteries that they maintain. Sorry, but unless you read-up and train yourself, you are not going to follow the proper procedures. You will simply either damage your battery, or your vehicle electronics.

You can read my battery maintenance thread, for more info on the particular model charger that I have, how long it takes to charge and desulfate a battery, how to use it, etc.

I cannot think of more to say on this subject.