On Mar 29, 4:54*pm, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Jim Yanik wrote:
Cydrome Leader wrote in
:

mike wrote:
On 3/27/2012 4:59 AM, klem kedidelhopper wrote:
I'm having a discussion on another group with someone about battery
charging. I often charge my batteries including automotive off my
bench power supply. He was telling me that smooth regulated DC is not
the best thing to use for charging batteries. He said that half wave
rectified unfiltered DC will prevent the growth of "dentrites" that
can eventually extend and short out the plates. This is the first I've
ever heard of this. Does anyone have any further insight on this? Lenny

The dendrite thing is what shorts sealed NiCd batteries.
"burp charging" is said to reduce that problem.

there are a variety of "desulfator" gadgets for lead acid batteries.

Here's what I've learned about lead acid batteries.

- small ones suck and die in a few years, no matter how you baby them
- big ones last longer and are expensive to replace.
- more and more batteries are from china and just pure crap.

that's really it. They all go bad in the end, usually when you need them.

I blew up my set of UPS-270 batteries by charging them on a charger that
failed with the series regulator going dead short.

They just replaced several tons of UPS batteries at work. Some of the
batteries were only months old, but they're still all going back to the
smelter as part of the trade in agreement. I tried to buy back the new
ones from the guys loading up the pallets, but they didn't want to get
fired, and somebody does count them up.

Of course,they count them.

the trick is to have substitutes to -swap- for the good ones you want. B-)
the loaders don't care as long as the numbers all add up.

last pile of duds I had went into the alley. Scrappers snatched them up
pretty fast.

I picked up a nice big gently used Emergency lighting/UPS battery
three years ago for 35.00 from Batteries Plus locally. I had to
convert the terminals to side mounts and it was a bit over sized for
my van but I got it in and it has worked flawlessly in Summer and
Winter, (New Hampshire). It tested out well over the equivalent of
1000CCA. Ive run it down a few times too accidentally and it has come
back with no problem, (charged off my regulated bench power supply at
3.0 A). Lenny