HF 3 Stage Charger - thoughts?

[salty]

At the bottom of that page is a link to batteryfaq.org, which is not perfect, but it's a lot more accurate.

[Tony]

Thanks!

[Mark]

how high does the battery terminal voltage get to AND STAY AT with the solar panel?

the sun shines full only a few hours a day... an unregulated wall wart operates 24/7 and can overcharge a car battery.. If the terminal voltage stays above 16 Volts for a long period of time, that WILL shorten the life of the battery.

But I will agree with you that __THREE__ stage control may be overkill, but you do need some kind of control for even a small wall wart charger..

Mark

[Stormin Mormon]

You'd be mistaken. My battery was new. The trickle charger was because the battery was only used for emergencies, and I wanted it to be charged when I needed it.

[salty]

Then either the battery was defective, or you have omitted some piece of information.

[Stormin Mormon]

Have you considered that maybe the HF float charger was a piece of junk, supplied too much electricity and electrolyzed the water out of the battery? Which is pretty much what I already said?

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I have a "Vector" charger with separate settings for Wet, Gel and AGM batteries and with charge-rate settings of 2, 10 and 15 Amps. Once my Group 31 Deep-cycle battery is fully charged I set the charge rate for

2A, and it switches into Float mode from time to time as well -- but the battery still has to be kept topped up with water.

Perce