battery tender or not

[mkast]

Re: battery tender or not

If I remember correctly, you mentioned "measuring amount of discharge". What I said was "current path".
Either on volts, measure amount of voltage or on ohms, measure resistance. The point is over the off season, six months, any current path will discharge the battery whether the cables are connected or not. The point of the project is to show the student that battery maintenance shouldn't be taken for granted. The aircraft battery is only used for one thing, starting the engine. The weight restrictions in aircraft result in batteries on four cylinder engines can be as small as 12 amp hour, not much reserve. Restarting an engine, in flight, requires battery and electrical system to be in airworthy condition.

 

[Scaaty]

Re: battery tender or not

Scaaty,

i agree with you on the float charger. I do like having the smart charger because it can bring up a discharged battery and is permanently mounted in the boat

Thats a different application...

so that when i go to my house on the lake, I can just plug it in and run lights, stereo, etc while I am docked.
See above...

You can't bring up a discharged battery with a float charger...at least not very fast.

You can't charge a batt with a float charger AT ALL...needs to be fully charged first...

The load tester that they sell at HF for $20 is just a voltmeter...and not a very good one at that.

Then when you hook it up, click it on for 10 seconds, why don't you grab the case around those glowing red hot coils in there...false statement

They do have something that they claim is a load tester for $50 but I doubt it can load the battery with 500 Amps like it claims.

My brother races Vintage cars...everyone in the pits has a HF Load Tester (get them on sale for 20 bucks)...so I guess they are all complete idiots with hundred thousand dollar cars..

 

[Scaaty]

Re: battery tender or not

This is what I'm talking about. You can catch them on sale for 20 some bucks, but ONLY if you have a store in town...not in the mail ads. What ever "voltmeter" you mentioned I'm unaware of, but if it said Load Tester, it would have a couple big 3/8's or better resistor coils in it. If it didn't, then one with knowledge would have to question just what it is.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: battery tender or not

OK..I was mistaken...That is the one I saw on HF.

You can't charge a batt with a float charger AT ALL...needs to be fully charged first...

Even the smallest float chargers can charge...although extremely slow...0.5 amp or so. The better float chargers are actually 3 phase chargers where the last phase is a float mode.

The Harbor Freight one puts out 0.5 Amp.

 

[Scaaty]

Re: battery tender or not

Says 600mA on all mine...

 

[bruceb58]

Re: battery tender or not

Ok..has 100mA more than I thought!

 

[craze1cars]

Re: battery tender or not

I have an Optimate
http://www.optimate3.com/classic/
charger/maintainer that I use for all my toys and equipment during their off-season storage...muscle cars, boat, PWC, snowmobile, lawn tractor, and an extra battery I have laying here in the shop. I feel the Optimate is the best/smartest charger/maintainer available, but not th cheapest one.

I have never left it hooked up to anything for extended storage times, but I'll put it on occasionally and let it run its cycle for any battery that is going into and coming out of storage to make sure it's still topped off and good. It has a test feature that will tell whether a battery is "good" or "weak" by measuring how fast an idle battery loses a given amount of its stored power. It is capable of doing wet and gel cell batteries...many chargers can't do that. They say it can desulfate an older battery...but never seen that mode kick in personally so I'm assuming my batteries don't need that treatment.

Unscientific personal experience tells me that my battery expenses have definitely gone down since I bought it...they simply last longer. Some of these batteries I'd replace every 3 to 5 years...but now I have a bunch in the 6 year old range and showing no signs of failing or getting weaker.

It's very slow and methodical...only delivers 0.6 amps. So it sometimes takes 4 or 5 days to charge up and complete it's testing cycle on a slightly discharged high capacity deep cycle battery. So this is not a good charger to use as a primary...it's strictly a long term battery storage/maintenance tool.

I personally believe it is a good investment and I'm glad I have and use one.

But Don makes a good point that needs to be carefully considered...a questionable battery in a boat can be a very a bad thing when if fails, depending on where you are and what its purpose is.

 

[imported_rosco]

Re: battery tender or not

disconnect the positive terminals and put it away. it will be fine.

that said, tenders rock. i use one all the time. but you have to be carefull to check the water level every couple weeks, cause a tender will fry your battery if it gets low on water. honestly, i think they are better for when you are using the boat as opposed to storing it.

when they make a battery, it might sit on a shelf for more than a year before someone buys it, and yet, it will start your car/boat every time.

 

[Sorrento 25]

Re: battery tender or not

Can you use of these tenders to maintain both batteries at the same time by connecting it to the battery switch?