Manual battery charger

[chiefallred]

New to battery cart, needing to know best method for maintaining batteries. I have installed new led voltmeter bought from member, charging battery until I see it has reached full charge by using battery voltage levels posted by johnnie. Have even posted on cart labels so daughters will see how read led "gas" meter. I Now I'm finding online something about you should overcharge. ? After spending over $700 on these new trojan 6 volt batteries, I would like for them to last awhile. Any tips appreciated. All I find is plug up charger and charge, mine is with manual charger so any help?

when you say "mine is with manual charger" do you mean the dial timer ?
there is great debate about over charging once in a while to desulfante the batteries , just as there is confusion as to how low to let batteries get before recharge 50% ~ 80%
you may want to look into a better charger that is fully automatic

[chiefallred]

It is an older charger with a manual timer. Works well at charging. Per johnnie's battery voltage chart. At 36.5 (minimum voltage ), it takes only 3 hours to reach full charge of 38.2.

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by chiefallred

It is an older charger with a manual timer. Works well at charging. Per johnnie's battery voltage chart. At 36.5 (minimum voltage ), it takes only 3 hours to reach full charge of 38.2.

Cut off voltage for recharging a 36v system is between 44-46 volts.

The pack will then settle to 38.4 after 12 hours or so. So if you are only bringing the pack up to 38 then you are not fully charging.

Oh the beauty of an automatic charger!

[jdunmyer]

Chief,
It is possible to charge your batteries with that unit, and get long life from them. When I sold my old Legend, I let the Lester manual charger go with it, along with the still-functional 7-year-old batteries. However:

When deciding how much time to put on the timer, I "sort of" followed the instructions on the charger: "Set timer for 7 hours for lightly discharged batteries, 12 hours if deeply discharged. To roughly check state of charge, turn on charger in the morning and see if ammeter drops into the green within 15 minutes." ("green" is less than 5 amps on the meter)

Having read about everything I could find on the care & feeding of lead-acid batteries, I went a bit further than the above. If the cart had been very lightly used, I might set the timer for 2 or 3 hours. My M.O. was more or less, "Keep it fully charged, but don't get carried away by unnecessarily overcharging".

Of course, only distilled water (from my dehumidifier) was used, and I was careful about the level. Kept the tops of the batteries clean & dry and all terminals tight.

One of the better ways of knowing what's going on with your batteries is to install one of ScottyB's meters. Read it after the cart has sat for at least 12 hours and compare the reading to the State of Charge (SOC) chart that's floating around. Take the time to study said chart a bit and you'll find that the difference between fully-charged and 80% discharged is only about 3.5 volts. That meter will also alert you to bad connections before you burn something up.

[gadavis]

Water from a dehumidifier is not distilled. It is simply condensate and contains all kinds of sludge particles and junk that washes off the coils of the unit and will gunk up the grid plates of your battery. Don't continue destroying your batteries like this. Use bought real distilled water. It is only about $.79 per gallon at Wally-world

[jdunmyer]

Gadavis,
Actually, the condensate from a dehumidifier is the very definition of distilled, albeit done at room temperature. But, you are correct in that it would not be considered "pure", as it would likely contain tiny dirt particles and bacteria. However, it will not contain anything very harmful to batteries such as the minerals present in most well water. I usually let the dehumidifier run for a day or so to rinse things out before capturing my "battery water".

As far as "destroying my batteries", my experience isn't all that bad:

When I bought my old Legend cart in 2000, the batteries were slightly swollen on the sides and one terminal was a bit melted from a loose connection. A Lester manual charger was included, and I figured on buying new batteries first thing. When I got the cart home, I put fresh oil in the differential, rebuilt the battery trays as necessary, then cleaned and reinstalled the batteries. It was Summer of 2005 when those batteries finally packed it in, so I replace them with a set from Sam's Club. Those batteries, still working, went down the road with the cart just a couple of weeks ago.

As I've said, I've gone out of my way to get educated on batteries, and am fairly fussy about their care, especially charging. Most of the year, the cart gets light use, but it sees quite heavy usage over about 4 weeks' time. I really can't complain.