calling "Red" - about charging gel cells

See the FAQ "Lead Acid packs - Care and feeding" at

Cheers, Fred McClellan the dash plumber at mindspring dot com

| A month or so ago, there was a discussion about automatic chargers, and cut | off voltages, and Red told me what the correct cut off was for gel cells. I | thought I saved it, but now I can't find it. Would you mind telling me | again?

14.7 volts for a 6 cell, 12 volt battery.

If you want it from Red,

inside | Auto charger, 1.5 amp, charging a 7 amp hour gel cell.

That charger charges twice as fast as this battery will allow. It'll burn up the electrolyte and ruin your battery over time. Get something that charges at around 700 mA instead.

Do me a favor and shake that battery. I bet its not a gel cell. I bet you will hear acid sloshing. There's a lot of sealed LC (lead calcium) batteries with spade terminals that are nothing more than little automotive type sealed batteries. They use the standard lead-acid charge regime, not the gel cell regime.

If it's a LC battery as I suspect, 1.5a is fine. However, don't leave it on charge for more than 5-6 hours.

Bob

Our testing at the Battery Clinic shows the that in addition to Ni-Cd, Ni-MH and Pb-Acid the Orbit Microlader V6.2 will do lithiums quite well - 1 to 6 cells. We have not tested the Schulze at the Battery Clinic.

-- Red S. Red's R/C Battery Clinic

us out for "revolting" information.

Can you be more specific, I need one of these for a float retrieval boat.

Thanks,

Dan Thompson (AMA 32873, EAA 60974, WB4GUK, GROL) remove POST in address for email

I don't know what GuW uses, but, him being Swedish and all, I won't be surprised if it turns out to be a CTEK unit.

-tih

You won't be suprised, it is a CTEK... I was looking for the charger online since I forgot the brand name, and already wrapped it (to give it to myself, I know it's stupid, but it looks better under the three)

Thanks guys, I'll research it. We just formed a club for float flying only and purchased a boat to use for retrieval. It has a 12 volt trolling motor and a

7.5 HP gasoline engine. I suspect the trolling motor will get the most use. In order to have it ready at anytime, we will need a float type charger and this one sounds like the type to get.

A float charger for a float boat! Pun was not intended.

Dan Thompson (AMA 32873, EAA 60974, WB4GUK, GROL) remove POST in address for email

You can also get a dual charge adapter for your car and just charge it like that.

"Dan Thompson" wrote something like this:

I gave one to my father too, he has a garden-tractor, an ATV and a boat with a trolling motor... In additition to this, he has an old car that he only uses the "sunny days" witch are few and far between...

I'll guess I have to order a bunch of connecting wires (they are cheap), both for him and for me...

When I borrowed one home, it was superb to just let the connector dangle outside the lid to the battery compartment of my flight box, heck, both my kids (8 and 10) and my girlftiend put my flightbox on charge if I forgot to do it myself... No risk for confusion there...

Good flying!

If my wife caught my girlfriend charging my batteries, I'd be the one discharged!

Tom