On 2012-05-12, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Ignoramus8579 fired this volley in
:

The stacker comes with a weakened battery, and without a battery
charger. The previous owner charger it with a "car charger". I am
wondering, what should one get to charge this one. It has a 12v
Deka battery that weights, perhaps, 300 lbs.

An automotive style charger rated to charge at about 50 amps should be
about right. I'd get the automatic "switch to float mode" type, if it
were mine. But for resale, ehh...

Thing about lead acid batteries is, their capacity tracks their weight
pretty closely. That weighs _about_ 5 times what a normal automotive
battery would, so it needs to be charged at about 5 times the amperage of
an ordinary automotive battery.

You can charge them more rapidly, but about C/10 to C/20 is nice and
gentle, and won't heat them like the faster chargers will.

Really big lead acid batteries do require special charging cycles to keep
their loooonnng plates de-sulfated and charging uniformly over their
whole area. So, for a real forklift battery (one of those 2300lb monster
batteries in the steel case), you really do need a special charger.

LLoyd

Lloyd, thanks, I get a little better picture.

i