external battery charger

[Bill and Lisa]

I decided to post this as a seperate post to facilitate future search inquires. As noted in other posts my converter failed and I am waiting for replacement parts to come in. Last weekend we borrowed a battery charger from someone in our camping group to charge our batteries. Since then we purchased a 3 stage automatic charger (25A, 10A, 2A) from Sam's club for about $50. (also does equalizing and desulfication charges)

My question (don't want to assume anything concerning electricity anymore) is I can treat my 2 6v golf batteries as if they are a single 12v battery as long as I ensure I apply the charge across both batteries (i.e. positive of one and negative post of the other)?

The battery charger we borrowed seemed to work very well but with a max charge rate of 10A it takes a long time to recharge 600 AmpHours worth of battery!

Any potential problems using a 12 V charger on a pair of 6volts that anyone is aware of?

Thanks,
Bill

[H. John Kohl]

quote:Originally posted by Bill and Lisa



My question (don't want to assume anything concerning electricity anymore) is I can treat my 2 6v golf batteries as if they are a single 12v battery as long as I ensure I apply the charge across both batteries (i.e. positive of one and negative post of the other)?

The battery charger we borrowed seemed to work very well but with a max charge rate of 10A it takes a long time to recharge 600 AmpHours worth of battery!

Any potential problems using a 12 V charger on a pair of 6volts that anyone is aware of?

Thanks,
Bill

No as long as you treat the two 6 volt as a 12volt system Positive of one and negative of the other.
Reference the 10 Amp charge. I am not sure that charging slowly is a bad thing for those batteries. Charging fast produces more heat and puts off more gases from the heat. To me the 25 Amp charge is when you need to get them back in operation quickly but not up to full charge.

[Ozz]

That is a good question, I will give an educated guess and say it is OK, for the reason that many of us have the two and even four G.C. batteries and our converters charge and maintain them nicely.
This is all predicated on having both, (in the case of two) batteries in the same age and condition.
Make sure your connections are corrosion free and all connections are tight.
I like the Red battery terminal spray protectant you can buy at auto parts stores, really seals them from corrosion well.
I have a home Inverter system with 10 G.C. batteries, that I use when our unreliable power co. fails us.
We also have two in the Montana.
Ozz

[Cat320]

As stated, as long as your batteries are wired in parallel, they'll accept the charge okay. The reason your 10 amp charger is taking so long to charge 600 amps of batteries is that the charger is not big enough. As a rule of thumb, the charger output should be equal to 10% of the batteries' total output...so you need a 60 amp charger for batteries that put out 600 amps. With a charger that big it should be a smart charger so it can provide only the amount of charging the batteries require.

[OntMont]

An "intelligent" battery charger such as you describe should be better than a "dumb" converter. Problem is that the charge rate may be too low if you use a lot of DC power.

If you have an Iota brand converter, get the smart charger option for it. "Dumb" converters simply put out a fixed charging voltage that is a compromise between fully charging the battery and boiling it dry. If you leave such a converter plugged in while in long term storage, you will probably end up with a near dry battery, and no storage capacity.

As others have said, there should not be any problem using the charger on two 6 volt batteries hooked together as you described it.

[Bill and Lisa]

Thanks all

[H. John Kohl]

quote:Originally posted by Cat320

As stated, as long as your batteries are wired in [s]parallel[/s]SERIES, they'll accept the charge okay. The reason your 10 amp charger is taking so long to charge 600 amps of batteries is that the charger is not big enough. As a rule of thumb, the charger output should be equal to 10% of the batteries' total output...so you need a 60 amp charger for batteries that put out 600 amps. With a charger that big it should be a smart charger so it can provide only the amount of charging the batteries require.

I edited the parallel to series if you are referencing the GC 6 Volt. I know it was a typing error.

[Cat320]

Thanks, John...typed "parallel" out of habit.