charging an AGM battery

[Martian]

I have an intelligent charger and an Optima D34M
It has 3 settings: standard / deep-cycle / gel,AGM

The optima website states don't use the gel,AGM setting because it won't fully charge my battery and may damage it over time.

Now I did think that they had excellent customer support but.....that was before I found the abouve fine print on the site. Previously I was told to use the gel,AGM setting. Just now I was told 'it should be OK to use the deep-cycle setting buy a kid that hummed an hawed a lot.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

martian

 

[Outsider]

Re: charging an AGM battery

Did the web site tell you how not to charge, but fail to tell you the correct way?

 

[seabob4]

Re: charging an AGM battery

AGM and Lead-Acid (standard) batts charge on the same setting. It's Gel cels that need the different setting as they can't accept the output voltages that AGMs and Lead-Acids can...

 

[Martian]

Re: charging an AGM battery

did the Optima website tell me the right way? Sort of.
It gives lots of specs for charging and nothing about the setting on a smart charger.

My charger had a setting called "gel,agm" if the two are so different why do some have this setting and why/how would it damage an AGM battery?

 

[seabob4]

Re: charging an AGM battery

Read this...

AGM batteries have several advantages over both gelled and flooded, at about the same cost as gelled:

Since all the electrolyte (acid) is contained in the glass mats, they cannot spill, even if broken. This also means that since they are non-hazardous, the shipping costs are lower. In addition, since there is no liquid to freeze and expand, they are practically immune from freezing damage.

Nearly all AGM batteries are "recombinant" - what that means is that the Oxygen and Hydrogen recombine INSIDE the battery. These use gas phase transfer of oxygen to the negative plates to recombine them back into water while charging and prevent the loss of water through electrolysis. The recombining is typically 99+% efficient, so almost no water is lost.

The charging voltages are the same as for any standard battery - no need for any special adjustments or problems with incompatible chargers or charge controls. And, since the internal resistance is extremely low, there is almost no heating of the battery even under heavy charge and discharge currents. The Concorde (and most AGM) batteries have no charge or discharge current limits.

 

[Martian]

Re: charging an AGM battery

thanks Seabob4.....contradicts other stuff but what am I gonna do? I will do the deep cycle setting....thanks all