Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:


Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

That particular unit should work ok. It's not rocket science to
maintain or float a charge on a battery. I use something similar
made by Schauer. It was made for motorcycle batteries but works fine
on an auto battery. Nice to have a fully charged battery when the
outside temp dips below zero.

On Jan 11, 12:21*pm, Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

You have to buy it then test it, cut in and out V, full charge
floating Voltage. It may be good, it may be junk and ruin your
battery. Expensive ones ive seen you can test and adjust. Buy it and
try it.

My experience with a HF brand "float charger". It boiled a
quart and a half of water out of my marine batter. which
never held a charge, again. I'd put this on a lamp timer, so
it only came on an hour a day, if you leave it on.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Red Green" wrote in message
...

Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

On Jan 11, 12:34*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:



Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

It's a joke. The thing is a 1.5 amp trickle charger. Something with
that low an output doesn't need 3 stages.

You can leave a 12 volt car battery hooked up to an "always on" 1.5
amp charger indefinitely without causing any harm. It will maintain a
charged car battery, but it probably couldn't charge a dead one.

Walmart sells an excellent name-brand (schumacher) 3 stage smart
charger that has custom settings for flooded, Gel and AGM batteries.
25 amps max. Less than $50.

If it is over 13.3v 1.5a will ruin a battery, You dont know how high
or or what voltage the charger puts out, it may be the other case
where it never puts out enough. Until something is tested with a meter
you wont know.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:05:22 -0800 (PST), ransley
wrote:

On Jan 11, 12:34*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:



Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

It's a joke. The thing is a 1.5 amp trickle charger. Something with
that low an output doesn't need 3 stages.

You can leave a 12 volt car battery hooked up to an "always on" 1.5
amp charger indefinitely without causing any harm. It will maintain a
charged car battery, but it probably couldn't charge a dead one.

Walmart sells an excellent name-brand (schumacher) 3 stage smart
charger that has custom settings for flooded, Gel and AGM batteries.
25 amps max. Less than $50.

If it is over 13.3v 1.5a will ruin a battery, You dont know how high
or or what voltage the charger puts out, it may be the other case
where it never puts out enough. Until something is tested with a meter
you wont know.

You are wrong on several counts. A 1.5 amp charger is not really even
considered a "charger" It is a battery maintainer. It will keep a
battery that is already charged from self discharging, but that's
about all it will do. The 3 stages of a "charger" that small are
useless. If that 1.5 amp charger is putting out 16 or 17 volts
unloaded, it will be barely able to keep a car battery topped up. When
you connect it to the battery, it won't still be putting out 16 or 17
volts. I PROMISE. And what makes you think anything over 13.3 volts
will harm the battery? At such low amperage, you aren't going to heat
anything up, which is the over-voltage danger with a real charger. Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.

Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.

Depends what you mean by HARM. Yes it won't explode or catch fire or
damage it in the short term.

But if you continue to charge a fully charged battery so that the
terminal voltage goes much above 14V, it will reduce the long term
life of the battery. By long term I mean the battery may need to be
replaced after 2 years instead of after 7 years.

Mark

Or in my case, after a couple months.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Mark" wrote in message
...

Depends what you mean by HARM. Yes it won't explode or
catch fire or
damage it in the short term.

But if you continue to charge a fully charged battery so
that the
terminal voltage goes much above 14V, it will reduce the
long term
life of the battery. By long term I mean the battery may
need to be
replaced after 2 years instead of after 7 years.

Mark

Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

This is a fairly good tutorial about charging car batteries.

http://www.batterystuff.com/tutorial_battery.html#9

I'd take a chance on this charger but I would also leave a volt meter on
it and make sure the voltages are somewhere close to the above tutorial
before I trusted it. 1.5 amps can indeed charge a completely charge a
dead car battery, but it will take days to do it.

I used to go through a lot of batteries on my 2 1970 husky bolens garden
tractors. They supposedly never had the best charging system. To make
things worse, sometimes they sit for months at a time without being
used. I put a similar charger on both of them and it's made a world of
difference. Batteries that only lasted 2 years now are going on their
5th year and are still going strong.

On Jan 11, 6:24*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:05:22 -0800 (PST), ransley





wrote:
On Jan 11, 12:34*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:

Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

It's a joke. The thing is a 1.5 amp trickle charger. Something with
that low an output doesn't need 3 stages.

You can leave a 12 volt car battery hooked up to an "always on" 1.5
amp charger indefinitely without causing any harm. It will maintain a
charged car battery, but it probably couldn't charge a dead one.

Walmart sells an excellent name-brand (schumacher) 3 stage smart
charger that has custom settings for flooded, Gel and AGM batteries.
25 amps max. Less than $50.

If it is over 13.3v 1.5a will ruin a battery, You dont know how high
or or what voltage the charger puts out, it may be the other case
where it never puts out enough. Until something is tested with a meter
you wont know.

You are wrong on several counts. A 1.5 amp charger is not really even
considered a "charger" It is a battery maintainer. It will keep a
battery that is already charged from self discharging, but that's
about all it will do. The 3 stages of a "charger" that small are
useless. If that 1.5 amp charger is putting out 16 or 17 volts
unloaded, it will be barely able to keep a car battery topped up. When
you connect it to the battery, it won't still be putting out 16 or 17
volts. I PROMISE. And what makes you think anything over 13.3 volts
will harm the battery? At such low amperage, you aren't going to heat
anything up, which is the over-voltage danger with a real charger. Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

www.batteryuniversity.com might help you learn

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:57:52 -0800 (PST), Mark
wrote:

Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.

Depends what you mean by HARM. Yes it won't explode or catch fire or
damage it in the short term.

But if you continue to charge a fully charged battery so that the
terminal voltage goes much above 14V, it will reduce the long term
life of the battery. By long term I mean the battery may need to be
replaced after 2 years instead of after 7 years.

Mark


Not if the charger is 1.5 amps, and it is connected to an average
sized car battery. It simply doesn't have enough power to do anything
that will cause either short or long term harm to the battery. And,
once again, having "three stages" in a 1.5 amp charger is absurd and
meaningless. If you want to be paranoid, just an automatic cutoff
would suffice. Not really needed, though.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:59:47 -0500, Tony
wrote:

Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

This is a fairly good tutorial about charging car batteries.

http://www.batterystuff.com/tutorial_battery.html#9


I won't pick it apart line by line, but right off the bat it has
glaring errors and omissions. One of the first things he says is that
you won't find proper 3-stage chargers at Walmart or auto parts
stores. That's just complete bull****, leading me to immediately
question if the writer knows anything at all, or if he is just making
stuff up, or misquoting things he "heard somewhere"

I wouldn't call that a "fairly good tutorial" at all.

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:31:06 -0800 (PST), ransley
wrote:

On Jan 11, 6:24*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:05:22 -0800 (PST), ransley





wrote:
On Jan 11, 12:34*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:

Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

It's a joke. The thing is a 1.5 amp trickle charger. Something with
that low an output doesn't need 3 stages.

You can leave a 12 volt car battery hooked up to an "always on" 1.5
amp charger indefinitely without causing any harm. It will maintain a
charged car battery, but it probably couldn't charge a dead one.

Walmart sells an excellent name-brand (schumacher) 3 stage smart
charger that has custom settings for flooded, Gel and AGM batteries.
25 amps max. Less than $50.

If it is over 13.3v 1.5a will ruin a battery, You dont know how high
or or what voltage the charger puts out, it may be the other case
where it never puts out enough. Until something is tested with a meter
you wont know.

You are wrong on several counts. A 1.5 amp charger is not really even
considered a "charger" It is a battery maintainer. It will keep a
battery that is already charged from self discharging, but that's
about all it will do. The 3 stages of a "charger" that small are
useless. If that 1.5 amp charger is putting out 16 or 17 volts
unloaded, it will be barely able to keep a car battery topped up. When
you connect it to the battery, it won't still be putting out 16 or 17
volts. I PROMISE. And what makes you think anything over 13.3 volts
will harm the battery? At such low amperage, you aren't going to heat
anything up, which is the over-voltage danger with a real charger. Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

www.batteryuniversity.com might help you learn


Ransley - a 1.5 amp trickle charger will not charge a completely dead
car battery because the dead battery will immediately suck the output
voltage down well below 12 volts, where NO charging can take place.
You can't charge a 12 volt car battery with 8-10 volts coming out of
the charger.

A 1.5 amp charger will also never have enough power to heat the plates
of a fully charged car battery, so all it can ever hope to do is keep
the battery "topped up" and make up for constant battery drains from
things like digital clocks, stereo tuning presets, etc, and self
discharge.

You arguments would apply to small 10-12 amp hour motorcycle
batteries, not 80-100 amp hour car batteries.

wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:59:47 -0500, Tony
wrote:

Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857
This is a fairly good tutorial about charging car batteries.

http://www.batterystuff.com/tutorial_battery.html#9


I won't pick it apart line by line, but right off the bat it has
glaring errors and omissions. One of the first things he says is that
you won't find proper 3-stage chargers at Walmart or auto parts
stores. That's just complete bull****, leading me to immediately
question if the writer knows anything at all, or if he is just making
stuff up, or misquoting things he "heard somewhere"

I wouldn't call that a "fairly good tutorial" at all.

It covers the basics for those who don't know the basics not going to
deep to go over their heads. And yes, I bought one of my
charger/maintainers at WalMart but they haven't had that or a similar
unit in stock in the past 3 years. Three years with no battery
maintainers. Maybe your walmart is different.

My Harbor Freight trickle charger (smaller than the one in
the discussion) electrolyzed the water out of my marine
battery, which never held a charge after that. I'd be
careful stating that a 1.5 amp charger will do no harm.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...


Not if the charger is 1.5 amps, and it is connected to an
average
sized car battery. It simply doesn't have enough power to do
anything
that will cause either short or long term harm to the
battery. And,
once again, having "three stages" in a 1.5 amp charger is
absurd and
meaningless. If you want to be paranoid, just an automatic
cutoff
would suffice. Not really needed, though.

wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:08:05 -0500, Tony
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:59:47 -0500, Tony
wrote:

Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857
This is a fairly good tutorial about charging car batteries.

http://www.batterystuff.com/tutorial_battery.html#9

I won't pick it apart line by line, but right off the bat it has
glaring errors and omissions. One of the first things he says is that
you won't find proper 3-stage chargers at Walmart or auto parts
stores. That's just complete bull****, leading me to immediately
question if the writer knows anything at all, or if he is just making
stuff up, or misquoting things he "heard somewhere"

I wouldn't call that a "fairly good tutorial" at all.
It covers the basics for those who don't know the basics not going to
deep to go over their heads.

What good are "basics" if they are wrong?

OK, if you say so. Maybe you can write or suggest something better to
read? I'd appreciate it, seriously!

wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:59:22 -0500, Tony
wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:08:05 -0500, Tony
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:59:47 -0500, Tony
wrote:

Red Green wrote:
Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857
This is a fairly good tutorial about charging car batteries.

http://www.batterystuff.com/tutorial_battery.html#9

I won't pick it apart line by line, but right off the bat it has
glaring errors and omissions. One of the first things he says is that
you won't find proper 3-stage chargers at Walmart or auto parts
stores. That's just complete bull****, leading me to immediately
question if the writer knows anything at all, or if he is just making
stuff up, or misquoting things he "heard somewhere"

I wouldn't call that a "fairly good tutorial" at all.
It covers the basics for those who don't know the basics not going to
deep to go over their heads.
What good are "basics" if they are wrong?
OK, if you say so. Maybe you can write or suggest something better to
read? I'd appreciate it, seriously!

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

Thanks!

On Jan 12, 6:52*am, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:31:06 -0800 (PST), ransley





wrote:
On Jan 11, 6:24*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:05:22 -0800 (PST), ransley

wrote:
On Jan 11, 12:34*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:51 -0600, Red Green
wrote:

Anybody got any +/- words about this 3 Stage unit.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=99857

It's a joke. The thing is a 1.5 amp trickle charger. Something with
that low an output doesn't need 3 stages.

You can leave a 12 volt car battery hooked up to an "always on" 1.5
amp charger indefinitely without causing any harm. It will maintain a
charged car battery, but it probably couldn't charge a dead one.

Walmart sells an excellent name-brand (schumacher) 3 stage smart
charger that has custom settings for flooded, Gel and AGM batteries..
25 amps max. Less than $50.

If it is over 13.3v 1.5a will ruin a battery, You dont know how high
or or what voltage the charger puts out, it may be the other case
where it never puts out enough. Until something is tested with a meter
you wont know.

You are wrong on several counts. A 1.5 amp charger is not really even
considered a "charger" It is a battery maintainer. It will keep a
battery that is already charged from self discharging, but that's
about all it will do. The 3 stages of a "charger" that small are
useless. If that 1.5 amp charger is putting out 16 or 17 volts
unloaded, it will be barely able to keep a car battery topped up. When
you connect it to the battery, it won't still be putting out 16 or 17
volts. I PROMISE. And what makes you think anything over 13.3 volts
will harm the battery? At such low amperage, you aren't going to heat
anything up, which is the over-voltage danger with a real charger. Gel
Cells are more sensitive to over voltage than flooded or AGM
batteries, but at 1.5 amps, even they won't be harmed by 15 or 16
volts. This thing is simply not powerful enough to harm a car sized
battery.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

www.batteryuniversity.commight help you learn

Ransley - a 1.5 amp trickle charger will not charge a completely dead
car battery because the dead battery will immediately suck the output
voltage down well below 12 volts, where NO charging can take place.
You can't charge a 12 volt car battery with 8-10 volts coming out of
the charger.

A 1.5 amp charger will also never have enough power to heat the plates
of a fully charged car battery, so all it can ever hope to do is keep
the battery "topped up" and make up for constant battery drains from
things like digital clocks, stereo tuning presets, etc, and self
discharge.

You arguments would apply to small 10-12 amp hour motorcycle
batteries, not 80-100 amp hour car batteries.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

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

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.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:56:02 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

My Harbor Freight trickle charger (smaller than the one in
the discussion) electrolyzed the water out of my marine
battery, which never held a charge after that. I'd be
careful stating that a 1.5 amp charger will do no harm.

Pretty much impossible. My guess is that your battery was
already bad.
That's probably why you put the trickle charger on it in the
first
place.

On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:10:25 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

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.

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

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?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:10:25 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

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.

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

On 01/12/10 08:10 pm, Stormin Mormon wrote:

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.

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