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  • #16
    Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
    Thanks!

    I'm trying to keep it real, and not be dancing on the head of a needle. I'll leave that to the marketing folk.

    For instance, with a fully charged D31M at 75ah, if you place the common 800 milliamp "tender" on it, even after a few days rest, it should finish the absorb and go back to float within an hour or less. If not, you may have not been truly fully charged in the first place. We are assuming of course that this isn't some badly sulphated battery, but a new one gotten from a reputable dealer within a reasonable amount of retail storage.

    That is the kind of non-lab, garage-gear testing tips I'm gathering with all this stuff. Talk is good, but only goes so far. Things that the average guy like me can repeat and duplicate inexpensively with real-world availability are even better.

    Note that I quickly added a control back to my original quest: I'm taking a 20ah CSB evx12200 ups-style agm down to 50%, while the Red-Top only down to 25% max with the same charging regimen on each regardless of solar or ac charge. Will the mis-application of the red-top beat a ups-style small agm? We'll see.

    Admittedly this is getting a bit strange and out of hand.
    You mentioned Deltran, and I am not trying to hijack your thread but what about this? My wife has a 2007 BMW with about 5000 miles on it. After about 2 years the car would not start. Took it to the dealer and they said the battery was not covered because it did not get driven enough. I fought and escalated to corporate and they replaced the "smart" battery. They did say I should put the BMW charger on it and that we have done ever since. I see it is a Deltran charger with BMW logo.

    So, after observing it for months at a time when the car was not being driven, I was worried it would never check to see if the battery was getting drained by phantom draws. So I got into the habit, when I thought of it, of unplugging the charger and plugging it back in again and then it would start with the red light... then the red plus blinking green and eventually green. Am I doing the right thing?

    I am also thinking of getting the Optimate 6 earlier than I need it for my other project to see what it says. That should be safe, correct?

    Also, thanks for all the good info in this thread.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
      I knew it before, but had to see it before my own eyes. That is, we undercharge our agm's for the most part by being too conservative, especially in the cyclic mode.

      I never really could tell because it is hard for me to purposely abuse a battery, and see the "walk down" in capacity with limited lab gear and most importantly a limited time-factor. I have to work to keep buying chargers, instead of tending to all my battery charging during the day. I do have some sort of life beyond batteries.

      BUT, with 80-100F heat that won't quit, using an Optima SLI with moderate mis-application slow discharges, and following up with charging with at least an hour of rest, I am FINALLY seeing a downward trend when not FULLY charging! ( I do my charging when it's 80F)

      Basically, Odyssey (and even Optima!) point out that just finishing absorb IS NOT ENOUGH. You either have to:

      1) Do an IUI charge, which no commonly available consumer charger does for a few hours. (Deltran / Battery Tender may have some special order ones, you won't see them at most auto-parts stores!) This is a constant current of about 1-3A for 2 hours or so, AFTER absorb, with either a 15.5v cap, or perhaps higher. One has to be careful here, as applying this constant current needs to be done at the VERY END of absorb, and not before, otherwise you are just spinning your wheels getting nowhere gassing. This is basically to jam it in before a VERY short turnaround, like factory shift changes for motive power utility vehicles.

      2) OR, failing that, following absorb with a 16-24 hour float which Odyssey mentions - which has to be HIGH ENOUGH to actually be effective. Ie, 13.5-13.8v.

      Interestingly, back in 1998 or so, the IUI protocol for Odyssey was discussed in the EV/Cyclic application manual, but nowadays, you are directed to speak to an engineer about it. Makes sense since no consumer charger is designed for IUI that I know of. This also makes sense to prevent the unknowing to think that just cranking the voltage up without knowing what you are doing will destroy the battery. It has to be done carefully if you are going to do it at all, and with some sort of precision.

      My recommendation is not to just "crank it up" if you have some other source, but do a long float instead. Do it at the wrong time, and welcome to the sound of rice-crispies. Warning - Enersys knows how to detect this abuse when they cut your return open.

      Thus, those chargers that just drop to float but only monitor, or do so at too low a voltage are not actually finishing the absolute job of charging. Maintenance is another matter, although I'd like to avoid the 13.2v vs 13.5v "float wars" seen a few years ago. If you are a large commercial ups user, you aren't using auto-parts store chargers anyway, and count ROI down to the last penny, so I don't lose too much sleep over it, although I prefer 13.5v. Note that I use Deltran chargers too when applicable, especially in my hot-weather environment, so I'm not a hater....

      What did this look like? It meant that when I applied even an 8 hour float of at least 13.5v, and then measured the OCV after a 12 hour rest, I see about a .03v improvement each and every time.

      In other words, when I charge without a long float on the red-top: 12.92v
      With a long float: 12.95v

      I did this enough times already to try and be as accurate as I can when taking the measurement at nearly the same ambient temp for both me and the battery with the IR thermometer.

      It may not seem like much, but it did confirm my suspicions that the engineers were right.

      So now what about solar? Yep - for cyclic agm use, set both absorb AND float to 14.7/14.8 and fugeddaboutit. You'll never get the 8 hours of absorb time in that you really need, nevermind the additional float that is needed yet again beyond that!

      What it comes down to is a practical measure for solar. Unless you can program your controller to do IUI, you are stuck doing the best you can with IUU, and therefore just jam in as much as you can before the sun goes down with BULK=ABSORB=FLOAT=14.8v or so. I like temp-comp too.

      Maybe those too afraid to set both absorb and float to the same value, or those CC's that drop to float too early, could gingerly test the waters by at least setting their float to the highest voltage available, like 13.8 or whatever is the top limit.

      So I *am* learning something first hand, even though it was already pointed out by the quality agm engineers. Guess I'm the type that has to learn the hard way.

      SIDE NOTE for a different chemistry:
      Interestingly enough, even AA rechargeables using the most advanced charger on the planet, the Maha C9000 does much the same thing! That is, for maximum capacity, when absorb is finished, two hours of lower voltage, 60ma/per hour current is applied before dropping to a TRUE maintenance trickle of only 10ma per cell. This isn't mentioned in the manual, but us AA geeks got the scoop from the Maha engineers. The improvement is seen when we do our discharge capacity tests.

      At some point, and endless absorb won't accomplish the full job here either. Good enough for most consumers, but not us fanatics that have the gold standard in AA engineering.

      It was interesting to see that from a general battery principle, you still need a good float to actually finish the job. Whether that is practical depends on the consumer.
      Howdy PNJ

      Thanks a lot for sharing your findings and enlightening us all, you rock

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by lkruper View Post
        So, after observing it for months at a time when the car was not being driven, I was worried it would never check to see if the battery was getting drained by phantom draws. So I got into the habit, when I thought of it, of unplugging the charger and plugging it back in again and then it would start with the red light... then the red plus blinking green and eventually green. Am I doing the right thing?
        That's a great thing to do by testing it. However, that can lead to either TWO conclusions: 1) the battery is healthy, fully charged, and happily sitting in float or 2) the battery is sulfated, and merely charges back faster than normal.

        I am also thinking of getting the Optimate 6 earlier than I need it for my other project to see what it says. That should be safe, correct?
        In my mind, yes. But if this is not approved by BMW, then you may end up eating any warranty issues, or being the scapegoat for any related electrical issues that may occur down the line. I don't have a relationship to BMW ownership, so I can't really say - only my own experiences with some other manufacturer dealerships.

        Also note that a charger that merely *looks* like a Deltran BT plus, may in fact have different charge profiles in it at the request of BMW. I can't say for sure. Deltran used to publish their charge profiles, and was actually a great help when they did Hawker/Odyssey specific chargers, but alas, that era of information is long gone, leaving guys like me to flounder around with their own ammeters and Flukes.

        Real world - I'd probably stick with what works and will guarantee warranty service with BMW. I don't know my way around their smart-battery charging system, and how it may differ from most other normal vehicles, so basically I'd be a bit gun-shy of using 3rd-party stuff - or at least until my warranty ran out and I truly owned the vehicle.

        Also, thanks for all the good info in this thread.
        Thanks - it is a truly silly experiment, and with so many variables nothing much may come from it - aside from accidental side-discoveries! Maybe that's the point of it somehow ending up on my subconscious bucket-list.

        Comment


        • #19
          Deltran Battery Tender side-test

          Tested 4 new Deltran Battery Tender chargers and took them apart for you. Mostly good news.

          With inclement weather, even rain!!, and finally 78F temps, thought it might be of interest for the small solar experimenter and yes, even sli guys, although that is not the intent.

          Picked up the "high efficiency" CEC approved 5A / 1.25a / .750a / and .800 waterproof.

          I opened all but the hocky-puck encapsulated waterproof, and although made in China, the build quality was EXCELLENT. Solder was perfect and shiny, which can be hard to do with lead-free solder. Essentially the same quality as my US-engineered / Chinese-made Flukes (11x series). They would definitely pass EEVBLOG muster. NOCO could learn a lesson here to bring it to the next level. Very pleased when I opened them up. Nice little wow-factor going on.

          Each one took my agm's up to 14.6v in absorb, (using a Fluke 87V) stayed there to about 150ma or so, and dropped to float. So far so good. Noted that there seems to be some sort of pwm component during absorb, and that is actually a good thing. I'm sure most solar CC manufacturers would approve.

          The batteries were the ones I am actively using, basically fresh but cycled enough to be reasonable, 3 Optimas (blue, red, and yellow tops) and the lowly small 20ah CSB ups-style.

          But, these are consumer items, and the .750a (non-waterproof) came in a little under spec at 13.10v float on all of the batts. That I might return. It happens.

          The .800 waterproof maintains at 13.20v, while the larger 1.25 and 5A versions maintain at 13.25v.

          My preference is for at least the 1.25a unit, especially for vehicles or anything larger than about 12ah in size. I'm certainly not going to use the small ones for bringing heavily discharged vehicle batteries back! Even if used just for float maintenance, my preference is still the 1.25a at least.

          As a test, each Optima was fully charged "Odyssey style", and left to rest for 6 hours.
          When the smaller .750 and .800 were placed on them, each completed a quick absorb back down to float within 15-20 minutes.

          This same test was followed by using the Battery Tender 1.25 and 5A versions for charge, left to rest for 6 hours and then the smaller units placed on them to see what happens. Same result - only 15-20 minutes to full absorb and then back to float.

          Just an observation - not a lab experiment. And of course, Odyssey balks at 13.2v float, whereas Optima says ok. I wonder if the Enersys guys are mistaking loss of capacity (assuming a FULL charge to begin with) at this level with a Coup-de-Fouet temporary deep voltage-drop effect that long-term float users might see when a large demand is suddenly placed on them, after a long sleep. Some guys in a black sedan just showed up. Might be some Enersys engineers who want to slap me around a bit. I'd need another lifetime to test this one.

          Basically a thumbs-up, especially since I was fearful that the new CEC-approved California/Oregon types would be cutting too many corners in both build quality and algorithm. I was pleasantly surprised.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
            Tested 4 new Deltran Battery Tender chargers and took them apart for you. Mostly good news.

            With inclement weather, even rain!!, and finally 78F temps, thought it might be of interest for the small solar experimenter and yes, even sli guys, although that is not the intent.

            Picked up the "high efficiency" CEC approved 5A / 1.25a / .750a / and .800 waterproof.

            I opened all but the hocky-puck encapsulated waterproof, and although made in China, the build quality was EXCELLENT. Solder was perfect and shiny, which can be hard to do with lead-free solder. Essentially the same quality as my US-engineered / Chinese-made Flukes (11x series). They would definitely pass EEVBLOG muster. NOCO could learn a lesson here to bring it to the next level. Very pleased when I opened them up. Nice little wow-factor going on.

            Each one took my agm's up to 14.6v in absorb, (using a Fluke 87V) stayed there to about 150ma or so, and dropped to float. So far so good. Noted that there seems to be some sort of pwm component during absorb, and that is actually a good thing. I'm sure most solar CC manufacturers would approve.

            The batteries were the ones I am actively using, basically fresh but cycled enough to be reasonable, 3 Optimas (blue, red, and yellow tops) and the lowly small 20ah CSB ups-style.

            But, these are consumer items, and the .750a (non-waterproof) came in a little under spec at 13.10v float on all of the batts. That I might return. It happens.

            The .800 waterproof maintains at 13.20v, while the larger 1.25 and 5A versions maintain at 13.25v.

            My preference is for at least the 1.25a unit, especially for vehicles or anything larger than about 12ah in size. I'm certainly not going to use the small ones for bringing heavily discharged vehicle batteries back! Even if used just for float maintenance, my preference is still the 1.25a at least.

            As a test, each Optima was fully charged "Odyssey style", and left to rest for 6 hours.
            When the smaller .750 and .800 were placed on them, each completed a quick absorb back down to float within 15-20 minutes.

            This same test was followed by using the Battery Tender 1.25 and 5A versions for charge, left to rest for 6 hours and then the smaller units placed on them to see what happens. Same result - only 15-20 minutes to full absorb and then back to float.

            Just an observation - not a lab experiment. And of course, Odyssey balks at 13.2v float, whereas Optima says ok. I wonder if the Enersys guys are mistaking loss of capacity (assuming a FULL charge to begin with) at this level with a Coup-de-Fouet temporary voltage-drop effect that long-term float users might see when a large demand is suddenly placed on them, and then recovers such as in SLI applications. Some guys in a black sedan just showed up. Might be some Enersys engineers who want to slap me around a bit. I'd need another lifetime to test this one.

            Basically a thumbs-up, especially since I was fearful that the new CEC-approved California/Oregon types would be cutting too many corners in both build quality and algorithm. I was pleasantly surprised.
            Great work! And Thanks. Questions:
            • How does one match the amps of the charger to the battery one wants to maintain.
            • Do these perform an active float?
            • Could these be used to bring a 100 amp battery at 50% DOD up to full charge?

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by lkruper View Post
              [*]How does one match the amps of the charger to the battery one wants to maintain.
              Ideally the same way you would do with solar for your particular chemistry and ratings. That is, for a flooded, no lower than C/12 to C/8 max. Conventional agm - no higher than C/4 (maybe C/3 depending). Gel's are a special case, which for cyclic solar we aren't interested in for the most part. Gel - C/20 max, and ALSO no higher than 14.1v, which means you have to be careful about what model you get. I know Deltran has gel specific models.

              Also, if you are picky about voltages, by far the VDC Battery Minder series is the most comprehensive. Great chargers actually. No matter what you feel about their desulphation-frequency technique, the chargers themselves, and the docs that go with it are really nice.

              So you can see I'm brand-agnostic, but they have to earn their keep when the Fluke and ammeters are put on them to see if they play nicely.

              Problem is, many cheap out, pick the lowest-current one they can find, and due to a one-off success of recharging a deeply discharged battery in 3 days with a possible timer reset in between, they think they are good. Far from it. Even Schumacher warns people NOT to use dinky little maintainers with largely discharged batteries, but not many read the instructions.

              [*]Do these perform an active float?
              Deltran does. Noco doesn't (other than a low voltage trigger back to absorb). Battery Minder does. CTEK does I believe. Others I haven't really messed with much. It all depends on how one feels about the "end game" of agm charging with these little things.

              A note about NOCO - what can throw people off is that they use a "stepped" CC according to their algorithm and you'll see it if you track it for sure. Note that the 7200 and higher models have a "maintenance" or "power supply" mode at 13.5v, which then COULD be used for the long-term float if you want it. I recommend at least 2 or more hours with that if you want a full charge. But that isn't hands-off as it requires you to go to standby, pull a clamp, manually put it into that mode, and reattach - at least with the early version 1 models. It's the most configurable one out there, and a lot to play with for us charger freaks.

              In fact, I use the NOCO's power supply mode to do "Odyssey style" charging of at least a float of 8 or more hours after I'm done with any other charger when I feel like going that route. Handy.

              [*]Could these be used to bring a 100 amp battery at 50% DOD up to full charge?
              Heh, see above. Yes, but you don't want to if they are the little 700mah types. For a 100ah battery, you really should be using .05C at the very least, and even then this wouldn't be recommended for hard core cycling. Use your panels for that. That means at least a 5ah capable charge, and a max according to your chemistry / model.

              In a total pinch, the 700ma types *could* be used as a band-aid to get a superficial charge up high enough to stop sulfation, but one is really doing themselves a disfavor by not sizing appropriately. Ie, what might work at a low current if the battery was already fully charged to begin with is ok. However, in the real world, a week's worth of Starbucks and short trips resulting in a major discharge is a whole different scene for it when you pull into the garage.

              So unless you are only using a small motorcycle, the little 700's are OUT as far as I'm concerned, even if they seem to grudgingly pull it off with a vehicle sized batt.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
                Ideally the same way you would do with solar for your particular chemistry and ratings. That is, for a flooded, no lower than C/12 to C/8 max. Conventional agm - no higher than C/4 (maybe C/3 depending). Gel's are a special case, which for cyclic solar we aren't interested in for the most part. Gel - C/20 max, and ALSO no higher than 14.1v, which means you have to be careful about what model you get. I know Deltran has gel specific models.

                Also, if you are picky about voltages, by far the VDC Battery Minder series is the most comprehensive. Great chargers actually. No matter what you feel about their desulphation-frequency technique, the chargers themselves, and the docs that go with it are really nice.

                So you can see I'm brand-agnostic, but they have to earn their keep when the Fluke and ammeters are put on them to see if they play nicely.

                Problem is, many cheap out, pick the lowest-current one they can find, and due to a one-off success of recharging a deeply discharged battery in 3 days with a possible timer reset in between, they think they are good. Far from it. Even Schumacher warns people NOT to use dinky little maintainers with largely discharged batteries, but not many read the instructions.



                Deltran does. Noco doesn't (other than a low voltage trigger back to absorb). Battery Minder does. CTEK does I believe. Others I haven't really messed with much. It all depends on how one feels about the "end game" of agm charging with these little things.

                A note about NOCO - what can throw people off is that they use a "stepped" CC according to their algorithm and you'll see it if you track it for sure. Note that the 7200 and higher models have a "maintenance" or "power supply" mode at 13.5v, which then COULD be used for the long-term float if you want it. I recommend at least 2 or more hours with that if you want a full charge. But that isn't hands-off as it requires you to go to standby, pull a clamp, manually put it into that mode, and reattach - at least with the early version 1 models. It's the most configurable one out there, and a lot to play with for us charger freaks.

                In fact, I use the NOCO's power supply mode to do "Odyssey style" charging of at least a float of 8 or more hours after I'm done with any other charger when I feel like going that route. Handy.


                Heh, see above. Yes, but you don't want to if they are the little 700mah types. For a 100ah battery, you really should be using .05C at the very least, and even then this wouldn't be recommended for hard core cycling. Use your panels for that. That means at least a 5ah capable charge, and a max according to your chemistry / model.

                In a total pinch, the 700ma types *could* be used as a band-aid to get a superficial charge up high enough to stop sulfation, but one is really doing themselves a disfavor by not sizing appropriately. Ie, what might work at a low current if the battery was already fully charged to begin with is ok. However, in the real world, a week's worth of Starbucks and short trips resulting in a major discharge is a whole different scene for it when you pull into the garage.

                So unless you are only using a small motorcycle, the little 700's are OUT as far as I'm concerned, even if they seem to grudgingly pull it off with a vehicle sized batt.
                Thanks. I think the 0.05C is what I was thinking of, and it seems I have seen that before. My current plan, is to start a small experiment with a single Marine battery, a small inverter and a charger. I will plug this into my manual transfer switch and see if it handles my small electronic device loads the way I calculate it will. The batteries in the final implementation will be kept in float most of the time but I will be getting a real charger to use in the event that I do have a power outage that lasts more than one day and need to charge quickly back to 100%. My primary backup will remain my 2000w inverter generator.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Great plan for getting your feet wet.

                  Know that while you CAN apply a load while these chargers are on, they will eventually hit the hard low-voltage trigger like 12.8v or so, and then STAY in absorb until they time out. So not really healthy to do this all the time.

                  OOPS. How could I forget Tecmate-Optimate? I place them above all the others because I really like the oscillating absorb for internal balancing reasons, the 50% duty cycle float at 13.5, which in my mind is the best of both worlds, and of course the relative state of health feedback to the user after the initial test, which repeats every 12 hours! There is MUCH more to the intelligence aside from simplistic voltage monitoring.

                  Martin Human at Optimate actually knows what he's talking about. I've never spoken with him, but from other communications on the net, it was all I needed.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
                    Great plan for getting your feet wet.

                    Know that while you CAN apply a load while these chargers are on, they will eventually hit the hard low-voltage trigger like 12.8v or so, and then STAY in absorb until they time out. So not really healthy to do this all the time.

                    OOPS. How could I forget Tecmate-Optimate? I place them above all the others because I really like the oscillating absorb for internal balancing reasons, the 50% duty cycle float at 13.5, which in my mind is the best of both worlds, and of course the relative state of health feedback to the user after the initial test, which repeats every 12 hours! There is MUCH more to the intelligence aside from simplistic voltage monitoring.

                    Martin Human at Optimate actually knows what he's talking about. I've never spoken with him, but from other communications on the net, it was all I needed.
                    The Optimate is on my list. I may order it before I need it for this project to play around with the APC UPS batteries I got for free because I did battle with APC when I got the UPS and complained that they were not performing. I bought the 3.5a NOCO to charge them and wish I had known about the Optimate back then.

                    I just got an APC BR1500G on an Amazon Lighting deal that takes an add-on battery bank that looks like it will keep my TV and Satellite receiver powered for about 4 hours. The first time one of my UPSs fails before the 3 year warranty, I want to be prepared to have a good way to test the batteries before I call APC for a warranty claim!

                    Next, I need to plan for my next experiment, which will be a way to charge that Marine battery with solar. My cabin is under lots of trees in a canyon and my solar exposure is hard to calculate.

                    I appreciate your experience and research.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by lkruper View Post
                      The Optimate is on my list. I may order it before I need it for this project to play around with the APC UPS batteries I got for free because I did battle with APC when I got the UPS and complained that they were not performing.
                      Funny - since I can't stand to purposely abuse a battery, I brought home about 3 stone-dead APC agm's that had been abandoned in place at work for about 5 years. At only 3-4v ocv I gave the Optimate 6 a shot, since none of my other chargers, Noco included would deal with them, or give up real quick. Fortunately it is smart enough to drop current back too for small batteries.

                      Holy cow - talk about blinky lights! The '6 went to work like mad for hours on end, and eventually it brought them back! BUT, only to the point of being just one foot out of the grave. They would hold voltage for awhile, but anything more than an led for a load made them crash again.

                      I was never serious about using them even if they did revive - I just wanted the Optimate to blink lights that I would probably never see under normal use. That little test really sold me.

                      I always wondered how those multi-battery ups's kept them all in balance? My thought was that if I were to replace them, each individual battery would get the Optimate treatment, and then get reassembled back into the UPS. Kind of lost interest after that.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Thanks for your hard work and abuse of those poor spiral wound optimas!

                        Your information has given me some more confidence in the "max smoke" plan that Sunking has a sticky for.

                        In fact, i have just purchased another MPPT controller to parallel with this one (they support parallel groups) to get more current out of the 2.5kw of panels on the roof, and now searching for some more panels to put up to give me 3.2 that both the chargers will support.

                        The solar controller i use has software control that allows me to set the voltages for absorption, the time period for absorption and the float voltages.

                        I have set the absorption volts to 14.8, float to 14.6, and the CV time for my 800ah pack to 2 hours.

                        I do have batteries in parallel (4 banks of 2x12 volts) and i have implemented a form of current sharing that's used in bipolar transistor amplifiers in the form of current sharing resistances by using 8 ga identical length leads. Each lead set has identical resistance, and i will be installing current meters to confirm that the current is shared equally but thats beyond the scope of this thread.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          So far, so good, but it hasn't even been 30 days yet.

                          I'll comment about the max-smoke issues in the other thread ....

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Getting bored - found some data!

                            Well, looks like someone has already done this test for me. Enersys / Hawker

                            The Hawker Armasafe Plus, a "tppl" pure-lead SLI battery for the military known as a 6TAGM, has a rated 360 cycles at 50% DOD. Ok, about 1 year tops for misapplication at this rate. I suppose this data was important in case somebody needed to shoehorn an SLI battery into field duty for something else and can now know what to expect.

                            The Optima Red-Top is not an Enersys product, but it is a "tppl" / pure-lead SLI battery, so at least I have a good baseline of data to meet.

                            Since I'm getting bored at the 30-day mark, I'm taking this bad boy down to 50% DOD daily now.

                            Enersys just took all the fun out of this. Thinking of doing a core-swap for some other experiment. Yawn.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by PNjunction View Post
                              Well, looks like someone has already done this test for me. Enersys / Hawker

                              The Hawker Armasafe Plus, a "tppl" pure-lead SLI battery for the military known as a 6TAGM, has a rated 360 cycles at 50% DOD. Ok, about 1 year tops for misapplication at this rate. I suppose this data was important in case somebody needed to shoehorn an SLI battery into field duty for something else and can now know what to expect.

                              The Optima Red-Top is not an Enersys product, but it is a "tppl" / pure-lead SLI battery, so at least I have a good baseline of data to meet.

                              Since I'm getting bored at the 30-day mark, I'm taking this bad boy down to 50% DOD daily now.

                              Enersys just took all the fun out of this. Thinking of doing a core-swap for some other experiment. Yawn.
                              I would imagine a few 100 percent DODs would do the job quick smart on an SLI. Letting them go fully flat is probably the number one failure mode for most SLI batteries. Left lights on, or 4wd fridge, or spotlight.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Heh, I've already done that experiment by accident with a really expensive Enersys / Odyssey at 4v ocv. Didn't think I should use an LVD and woke up one morning freaking out.

                                The Optimate 6 brought it back nicely. Not too much harm since I got to it asap but I'm sure I cooked off a few cycles.

                                So, yeah, I could just burn it up but I've been there. Still trying to think of something I can learn something interesting from - lifepo4 has been done to my satisfaction - conventional / pure-lead agm's are fun. Maybe an FLA is in my future if I can think beyond just rote proper maintenance.. hmmm

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