Why are 12v battery chargers to unreliable

Have you used a genuine "battery tender" ?

Have not hrard of any issues with them - a lot of friends using them for years on their "toys" - and they won't boil batteries. Might have to put them in an enclosure of some sort - other than possibly marine chargers they ALL need protection, or they WILL fail.

Generalky "the dumber the better"

Because far too many people want more power, quicker charging, AND cheaper pricing. Mfgrs overload power transistors, use the cheapest suppliers for everything, and have hacks design the circuits. Then these same people fail to hold the manufacturers to any warranty claims. "It was cheap and I tossed it; lesson learned." But they didn't learn it since they let the mfgr off without any angry feedback.

Yeah, isn't that fun?

Build one into a Penguin case with weatherproof leads?

Why not stick with what works? A portable solar panel is fairly cheap to put in the truck fulltime, then deploy it on the roof when it sits.

I'm still using my dad's old 5A un-weatherproof louvered metal box.

I meant to add Schumacher Sure Fire 300, 3A, 6/12V from the '60s. Original clamps, cord, analog meter, and everything.

Put your favourite one under an upturned mortar trough for outdoor use.

Deltran Battery Tender? ? I have. Exactly the problems that ig described. All of them. Trash.

I've had good luck with the little 800 mA potted Deltran, 1 outside on a rock. I have 3 in service, 1 failure in 5 years. I don't live in snow country.

Pete Keillor

On Nov 10, 2017, Ignoramus30995 wrote (in article):

What you want does exist in the marine world. When boats are in storage (on a cradle in a boatyard or back years), people often use trickle chargers to keep the batires charged (and thus freeze-proof). These chargers are almost always used outdoors, and are powered by 115 Vac.

Ask around your local boatyards for the best brands. And for the avoid-at-all-costs brands.

Joe Gwinn

"Ignoramus30995" wrote in message news:WoednTsagZda-5vHnZ2dnUU7-I snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

I bought the Harbor Freight 99857 to install in my truck and was satisfied that it worked as intended, although I decided to use solar power instead so I can't tell you if it lasts outdoors.

I personally like having voltmeters on batteries or easily connected to them so I can tell when they need attention. Cigarette lighter outlets and a meter like this work well.

Charging everything on a schedule like the start of each month reduces the time power cords are out to trip on or damage. Old batteries need more frequent topping off to keep them from falling into the high resistance condition called sulfation.

They also need an ammeter to show if they aren't accepting a charge despite apparently correct charger output voltage, which might be your real problem. A solar panel charger forces current at whatever voltage is necessary. The danger is their open circuit voltage >20V which could damage electronics if the battery refuses to accept charge current.

I solve it by increasing the charge voltage above 15V from home-made adjustable linear regulator chargers with these meters.

"Lab" or "bench" adjustable power supplies will work if the user knows how.

My 2x100W Grape Solar panels arrived and are producing 140W right now,

9AM EST, equal to or slightly more than the APC1400, this laptop, its 19" external monitor and the fridge consume on average, according to charge and discharge wattmeters. They are already at their rated MPP current with the sun only 15 degrees up.

-jsw

This is the accepted reason why batteries fail:

The symptom is increasing intenal resistance that eventually won't let the battery accept charging current at the usual float voltage. Increasing the voltage to 16 - 17V may force enough current in to begin slow recovery. The charger needs to limit the current which may otherwise rise quite high at 15V or above when the battery recovers. Pulse reconditioners automatically apply high enough voltage at limited current, though I'd rather watch the progress with a metered DC supply and adjust the charging current to a few percent of the Amp-hour rating of the battery

I've made neighbors' "dead" batteries last for several more years that way, but they needed annoyingly frequent attention. Since I don't like trickle charger power cords lying around I check and top them off on a schedule.

When old batteries reach that condition the trickle charger voltage doesn't tell you enough. I bought the HF carbon pile tester to measure how much starting current is really available. A cheaper fixed resistance load tester is nearly as good.

-jsw

Sadly, Shumacher has done like everyone else and gone to high feature low quality Chinese-built crap.

I had a Guest charger and it failed in a few years. This is what I am trying to replace right now./

Also "smart" chargers, "genius" chargers, etc

This is what I will do, I will go with the Pulsetech solar charger.

By the way, Pulsetech's 110v chargers get the same kinds of bad reviews like "failed in a year".

i

I've got an old Canadian Tire charger I've had for decades, as well as a Shumaker smart charger I've had for at least 10years. It is a bit overly picky and accuses some good batteries of having a shorted cell when I know from there performance they definitely do not.

I also have a Sears DieHard charger given to me by a friend when he accidently left it in the "boost" mode too long and totally fried the ammeter. I ordered a new one from a charger repair depot for something like $17 and now it is as good as new.

I also have an assortment of 24 and 36 volt chargers floating around. The old ones seam to live forever, while the newer ones have a ways to go - - - -

Not quite everyone. Ig, maybe look for one of these?

4 left in the US.

An ad on Amazon shows that they build for the US Army. What size do you have? They seem to make $72 2 watter, 5w, 6w, and a $730 25 watter! =:0 Hmm, 24v desulphators, too. (Watch Jim cringe.)

Can you wire it in and just unplug the charger and solar panel whenever? That would be ideal, at least to me. It would also make it usable on multiple vehicles or pieces of equipment.

Suckage.

Congrats! They sound efficient at that angle.

I bent up some replacement brackets (decided to raise the bottom 3" to get the proper tilt, so had to lengthen the top 6 with no metal stretcher at hand) for the solar panels yesterday and then spent far too long removing the scale from the damned things. Now to clean and cold-galv spray them. It's going to rain here all week, so get ready downstream, guys.

I lost some batteries to a Guest. Now my onboard charger is a Minn-Kota. 10A on 3 channels. It's worked well for about 6 years now, just replaced the start battery last year.

I'm impressed with how well they perform on a PWM controller, compared to the maximum 32W I got from an HF "45W" kit.

I couldn't resist $1/Watt with free home delivery. Now I have more solar panels than good places to permanently mount them. Folding plastic sawhorses worked well enough for temporary use.

At noon the wattmeter on the controller input peaked at 180W. It totaled 0.958 KWH from 8AM to 2PM when I stopped because the battery voltage was climbing into the gassing range. In another 1/2 hour they would have been shadowed by a tree anyway.

My Windy Nation P20L PWM controller allows a higher equalizing voltage for 2 hours before limiting at 13.8V (or whatever you program) . For wet cells it goes to 14.6V, too much for indoors.

I will retest with the battery type set to Gel which drops the 2 hour voltage limit to 14.2V where my batteries don't gas as much. A published threshold for concern is 14.3V. It's easy to see if they are or aren't fizzing or bubbling but difficult to measure the rate. At the APC1400's 13.6V default float setting there is virtually no bubbling, but the recharging rate is too low for daily cycling.

-jsw