I think the screw was for temperature compensation. At -20F, a typical battery may require 16V. At 30F it may require 15V and at 110F, 13V. Chargers and regulators used to be set manually, taking the estimated temperature into account.
A trickle charge is supposed to compensate for self-discharge. The
2-amp trickle of those chargers will be magnitudes greater than self-discharge.
Self discharge and internal resistance are TOTALLY unrelated. A battery is a series of cells. Each cell has an internal resistance
- which is between + and - terminals. This is "series" resistance. If there is no load on the battery there is no current flow, so no effect. IF both internal resistance and self discharge are lower on a given battery than another, the two items are co-incidence, not causual.
Use a hydrometer to check the specific gravity of the electrolyte in a lead acid battery if it's one that you can open. Some batteries actually have a little indicator that turns green when the specific gravity is within the proper range.
TDD
When I charge any battery, I sit next to the charger all day if required and watch the meter. If I get tired, I put the battery and charger in my bed and set my alarm to wake me every 10 minutes to check the meter. Because I have many batteries to charge, I had to quit my job so I could keep up with monitoring them. That worked fine until I ran out of money and they utility company shut off my electricity. Now I have a solar charger, which often takes days to charge a battery. I now spend all my time watching them charge and can no longer do anything else. I have lost 72lbs from not eating for days, because I can not leave the battery long enough to use my food stamps to grocery shop or to cook. However, my batteries are always accurately charged and last a long time.
Please send me money $$$$$$$
Padro
Thanks all.
Based on what everyone wrote, I've been looking for an "automatic" battery charger. I checked Harbor Freight and one person suggested.
Here's the instruction manual for one Harbor Freight battery charger:
Check out any of the Sure Charge family as sold by Northern Tool. I keep my generator plugged into one, 24/7. It starts when I need it and has for the past 9 years [Same battery].
I think the problem is that the Chinese engineers hired an English major to write the manual, and the author tried to make sense of it in a hurry.
Page 9 makes it sound as if the 10A mode is not regulated. That's the one where you have to keep an eye on it.
It says in the auto mode (apparently 2A), you can go away, and it will turn on only as needed.
I'm curious about the note of Page 8: "This charger is not recommended for batteries with a built in Hydrometer eye. The reading of the built-in eye will conflict with ammeter readings."
I imagine what it means is that you should ignore the eye while charging because tiny gas bubbles from charging could make the eye read falsely.
that'l be a first.
Chinese English Major - not an engineer or scientist or anyone with knowledge of both the product and English - so you get Chinglish.
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