"Eisboch" wrote in message
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"William Bruce" wrote in message
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"Eisboch" wrote in message
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"Harry Krause" wrote in message
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Last year I bought a Vector battery charger, the blue "marine" model
that has 2/10/20/35 amp charge rates, and I've used it a couple of
times to charge my tractor battery, car battery and boat batteries. It
works well as a charger at the 2/10/20 rates. Never tried the 35 amp
rate.

But the charger also "reconditions" batteries, or so the advertising
and manual say, using a 24-hour cycle to desulfate battery plates. I've
never used this feature, but I loaned the charger to a buddy and he
reports that it actually revived two batteries he was about to toss. I
don't have any other details.

My one gripe about the charger is that its LED readouts are virtually
impossible to read outdoors, even in indirect light.

I got one of the small ones and liked it so much I got the bigger one
with up to 40 amps charge rate and a 100 amp "start engine" setting.
Like you, I revived a couple of motorcycle batteries that sat all winter
and would not take a charge with a regular charger.

Unfortunately, after using it maybe 6 times the bigger one died. Plugged
it in one day and it went "pop" and a small trail of smoke rose out of
it. The little one still works but you have to slap it around to get the
fan running. They are great chargers but I am not so sure about the
quality.

Eisboch

www.eisboch.com


Why not just buy a new battery? I personally don't want to take any
chances. If a battery goes dead, why risk your peace of mind and safety
for maybe another 10% to 20% of its normal life?


I agree with you if the battery is a few years old however sometimes a
battery in perfectly good condition can sulfate over during a period of
none use, as is my example of the motorcycle batteries. When the plates
sulfate and you try to charge the battery, it will quickly come up to the
charger's output voltage and the current drops off as if it is fully
charged. The problem is that the battery is far from fully charged, it is
just displaying a surface charge, acting like it's a very small battery.
When you put a real load on the battery, the charge quickly dissipates and
there's no juice.

The "reconditioning" feature on these chargers output a much higher
voltage - typically in excess of 15 volts that overcomes the insulating
properties of the sulfated plates and "burns" it off. A battery that was
not allowing any current from the charger before reconditioning will now
take a normal charge. I've done this several times in the past with the
motorcycle batteries and once regaining a charge, the battery is fine for
another season of riding.

I remember years ago there was a battery additive marketed that chemically
did the same thing and was supposed to bring dead batteries "back to
life".

Eisboch

www.eisboch.com

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.