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Battery maintainers

 
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ronburnett(at)charter.net
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 8:14 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

Am at OSH and got the impressive presentation of Battery Saver #3015-LCD

Maintains larger vehicles with up to two batteries
Quickly charges weak batteries
Pulse cleaning mode improves battery condition with continued use
Automatically works with 6&12 volt lead acid batteries
Built in LCD tester displays voltage, amp output and battery percentage bar

I have two Oddessy PC-680 batteries which need keeping at peak for an electric dual EFII system.

Anyone have this unit or a knowledgeable suggestion?

Thanks,

Ron Burnett
RV-6A

May you have the Lord's blessings today!
Sent from my iPad


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ceengland7(at)gmail.com
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2019 4:47 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

Unless you only fly twice a year, plug your charger money into avgas.

Smile
Sent from BlueMail
On Jul 23, 2019, at 11:19 PM, Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net (ronburnett(at)charter.net)> wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
--> AeroElectric-List message posted by: Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net>Am at OSH and got the impressive presentation of Battery Saver #3015-LCDMaintains larger vehicles with up to two batteries Quickly charges weak batteries Pulse cleaning mode improves battery condition with continued useAutomatically works with 6&12 volt lead acid batteries Built in LCD tester displays voltage, amp output and battery percentage barI have two Oddessy PC-680 batteries which need keeping at peak for an electric dual EFII system.Anyone have this unit or a knowledgeable suggestion?Thanks,Ron Burnett RV-6AMay you hav http:on">http://www.matronics.com/contribution


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bobnoffs



Joined: 04 Jul 2012
Posts: 132
Location: northern wi.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:40 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

past input to this forum suggests that 680's [and all of that brand] live longer with only charging from the engine running. a flight even every 6 weeks should be enough. a constant charge seems to more often shorten the life and is not needed. i shortened the life of my 625!.  bob noffs
On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 7:52 AM Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com (ceengland7(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

Quote:
Unless you only fly twice a year, plug your charger money into avgas.

Smile
Sent from BlueMail
On Jul 23, 2019, at 11:19 PM, Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net (ronburnett(at)charter.net)> wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
--> AeroElectric-List message posted by: Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net (ronburnett(at)charter.net)>Am at OSH and got the impressive presentation of Battery Saver #3015-LCDMaintains larger vehicles with up to two batteries Quickly charges weak batteries Pulse cleaning mode improves battery condition with continued useAutomatically works with 6&12 volt lead acid batteries Built in LCD tester displays voltage, amp output and battery percentage barI have two Oddessy PC-680 batteries which need keeping at peak for an electric dual EFII system.Anyone have this unit or a knowledgeable suggestion?Thanks,Ron Burnett RV-6AMay you hav http:on">http://www.matronics.com/contribution




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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 5:15 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

At 06:39 AM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
Quote:
past input to this forum suggests that 680's [and all of that brand] live longer with only charging from the engine running. a flight even every 6 weeks should be enough. a constant charge seems to more often shorten the life and is not needed. i shortened the life of my 625!.Â
 bob noffs

Generally true. Consider that even before
the era of SVLA batteries, it was not uncommon
to have a battery in a vehicle run for 3 years.
Of course this assumes regular use with a
properly functioning charging system and
no extra-ordinary abuse of the battery (deep
discharge, freezing, hot storage, etc).

The SVLA battery's superior reduction in
self-discharge makes still more likely that
a well treated battery will have a long
service life.

The 'well treated' battery gets 'parked'
with a high state of charge in a relatively
benign environment. If one anticipates
a long storage then there is but ONE externally
applied benefit comes in the form of a
MAINTAINER which is simply a voltage
source tied to the battery and adjusted
for a few hundred MILLIVOLS greater than
the battery's nominal resting voltage.

This cannot and does not charge the battery.
It simply offers an energy source to
shoulder the very small self discharge
currents that exist in all batteries.

A few weeks ago I purchased a Battery Minder
Plus charger/maintainer. A Lister supplied
me with a near end of life SVLA battery
as a test article to evaluate this new
product from Battery Minder. This
product claims to have added desulfation
technology for even better performance
as a battery maintenance device.

I've looked at the charging output on a
'scope and yes . . . there are some spikey
pulses coming out that must be artifacts
of the Battery Minder approach to 'desulfating'
the battery. I'll have more to offer on this
product later . . . it takes WEEKS to evaluate
the efficacy of this process. Suffice
it to say that I'm not impressed nor did
I expect to be.

A cruise through the library of YouTube
videos yields a constellation of bad
science offered up as practical techniques
to work around the laws of physics in
batteries, energy sources and weight
loss.

There are dozens of PATENTS for battery
desulfation schemes with a common thread
suggesting that the lead-sulfide crystals
can be electrically 'hammered' back into
useful chemistry from outside the battery.

The whole battery desufation thingy
has proven to be in the same class of
products as strapping magnets to your
incoming main to 'soften' the water . . .
and little 'turbines' installed under
your carburetor to boost gas mileage.

I am saddened that legacy battery maintenance
products like Battery Minder have found
it necessary to emulate their competition's
ventures into smoke-n-mirrors marketing
but hey, it's the nature of things. Just
look at all the brands of laundry soap . . .
I buy what's on sale . . . works just
fine.

A battery charger-MAINTAINER will top
of the battery one time and then revert
to a maintenance mode that is only
capable of offsetting self-discharge
currents . . . and can only enhance
battery service life.

[img]cid:.0[/img]

As for desulfation . . . ask to see
laboratory test results that prove efficacy
of the product's performance claims.

But if you fly regularly, even the well
crafted maintainer will be of no demonstrable
benefit.


Bob . . .


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 9:25 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have  not had a failure.
However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that it is affixed to.
Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days.  However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current flow, but, few do.
One could install their own diode however, its forward voltage drop now means that the charging voltage will be lower by 0.5 - 0.6 volts.  Not good, in the 6v or 12v charging arena. It would be nice if one could open up the maintainer and tweak the charging voltage to make up for the diode's voltage drop....
D

On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 9:20 PM Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net (ronburnett(at)charter.net)> wrote:

Quote:
--> AeroElectric-List message posted by: Ron Burnett <ronburnett(at)charter.net (ronburnett(at)charter.net)>

Am at OSH and got the impressive presentation of Battery Saver #3015-LCD

Maintains larger vehicles with up to two batteries
Quickly charges weak batteries
Pulse cleaning mode improves battery condition with continued use
Automatically works with 6&12 volt lead acid batteries
Built in LCD tester displays voltage, amp output and battery percentage bar

I have two Oddessy PC-680 batteries which need keeping at peak for an electric dual EFII system.

Anyone have this unit or a knowledgeable suggestion?

Thanks,

Ron Burnett
RV-6A

May you have the Lord's blessings today!
Sent from my iPad

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:58 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
Quote:
Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have not had a failure.

However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that it is affixed to.

Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days. However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current flow, but, few do.

I just checked the back-flow into one of my
Battery Tenders. Measured just under 1 milliamp.

It would take 20,000 hours (2.3 years)
to toss off all the energy in a 20 a.h. battery.
The voltage sense circuitry could indeed be
calibrated to wash out the voltage drop of a
diode but the risks are pretty small.




Bob . . .


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ceengland7(at)gmail.com
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 12:02 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

On 7/25/2019 1:56 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:

Quote:
At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
Quote:
Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have  not had a failure.

However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that it is affixed to.

Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days.  However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current flow, but, few do.

 I just checked the back-flow into one of my
 Battery Tenders. Measured just under 1 milliamp.

 It would take 20,000 hours (2.3 years)
 to toss off all the energy in a 20 a.h. battery.
 The voltage sense circuitry could indeed be
 calibrated to wash out the voltage drop of a
 diode but the risks are pretty small.




  Bob . . .
Any chance that due to the seemingly endless variation in designs among brands and even within brands, everybody could be right?

For example, Odyssey says that *their* charger-maintainer can be left connected to their batteries indefinitely, but there are a *lot* of 1st person accounts floating around describing very short lived Odyssey batteries "even though I kept them on a maintainer" (brands unspecified). There are relatively few 1st person accounts (that I've seen) complaining about short lived Odyssey batteries when no 'maintainers' were used.

Charlie
Virus-free. www.avast.com [url=#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2] [/url]


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kenryan



Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 424

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 12:56 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

I would be reluctant to trust unverified third party reports on this. I
have found that "battery literacy" is quite low. For example, many people
think a "trickle charger" is the same thing as a battery maintainer; many
people have no idea how bad it is to fully discharge a battery, etc. Then
there is the "cause or effect" problem -- i.e. are people with already bad
batteries more likely to resort to using a battery tender, and then when
the already damaged battery dies, blame it on the tender? I myself have a
lot of experience using battery maintainers, all of it good. Based on that,
I completely agree with Bob that it is impossible to damage a battery by
using a properly functioning battery tender.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 12:10 PM Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com>
wrote:

[quote] On 7/25/2019 1:56 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:

At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:

Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have not had a failure.

However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a
GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the
unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that
it is affixed to.

Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days.Â
However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will
discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current
flow, but, few do.
I just checked the back-flow into one of my
Battery Tenders. Measured just under 1 milliamp.

It would take 20,000 hours (2.3 years)
to toss off all the energy in a 20 a.h. battery.
The voltage sense circuitry could indeed be
calibrated to wash out the voltage drop of a
diode but the risks are pretty small.

Bob . . .

Any chance that due to the seemingly endless variation in designs among
brands and even within brands, everybody could be right?

For example, Odyssey says that *their* charger-maintainer can be left
connected to their batteries indefinitely, but there are a *lot* of 1st
person accounts floating around describing very short lived Odyssey
batteries "even though I kept them on a maintainer" (brands unspecified).
There are relatively few 1st person accounts (that I've seen) complaining
about short lived Odyssey batteries when no 'maintainers' were used.

Charlie
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=icon> Virus-free


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 2:08 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 4:00 PM Ken Ryan <keninalaska(at)gmail.com> wrote:

[quote] I would be reluctant to trust unverified third party reports on this. I
have found that "battery literacy" is quite low. For example, many people
think a "trickle charger" is the same thing as a battery maintainer; many
people have no idea how bad it is to fully discharge a battery, etc. Then
there is the "cause or effect" problem -- i.e. are people with already bad
batteries more likely to resort to using a battery tender, and then when
the already damaged battery dies, blame it on the tender? I myself have a
lot of experience using battery maintainers, all of it good. Based on that,
I completely agree with Bob that it is impossible to damage a battery by
using a properly functioning battery tender.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 12:10 PM Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 7/25/2019 1:56 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:
>
> At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
>
> Ron,
> For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews
> first.
> For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
> I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have not had a
> failure.
>
> However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers


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kenryan



Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 424

PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 2:29 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

"Why risk hooking it to something when the owner isn't qualified to judge its suitability for the task?" -- Well, first off, once the knowledge of the distinction between a battery maintainer and a battery charger has been acquired, the owner is pretty well qualified. Next thing to consider is that even a single complete discharge can severely damage a battery. And the final ingredient is the observation that although we plan to fly regularly, sh(at)# happens, and it is easy for time to pass. All of this makes me wonder why anyone would prefer not to put the battery on a tender, unless of course doing so is difficult and time consuming. But if the airplane is set up for it, that will not be the case. (And there is nothing like a fresh, fully topped battery for spinning that engine.) As to the comparison to automobiles, I really don't think that is fare. Most people drive their cars daily. A better comparison would be to motorcycles, where owners quickly learn (because of the cost of battery replacement) to put their batteries on tenders at the end of riding season.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 14:13 Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com (ceengland7(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

Quote:


On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 4:00 PM Ken Ryan <keninalaska(at)gmail.com (keninalaska(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

Quote:
I would be reluctant to trust unverified third party reports on this. I have found that "battery literacy" is quite low. For example, many people think a "trickle charger" is the same thing as a battery maintainer; many people have no idea how bad it is to fully discharge a battery, etc. Then there is the "cause or effect" problem -- i.e. are people with already bad batteries more likely to resort to using a battery tender, and then when the already damaged battery dies, blame it on the tender? I myself have a lot of experience using battery maintainers, all of it good. Based on that, I completely agree with Bob that it is impossible to damage a battery by using a properly functioning battery tender.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 12:10 PM Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com (ceengland7(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

Quote:
On 7/25/2019 1:56 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:

Quote:
At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
Quote:
Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have  not had a failure.

However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that it is affixed to.

Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days.  However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current flow, but, few do.

 I just checked the back-flow into one of my
 Battery Tenders. Measured just under 1 milliamp.

 It would take 20,000 hours (2.3 years)
 to toss off all the energy in a 20 a.h. battery.
 The voltage sense circuitry could indeed be
 calibrated to wash out the voltage drop of a
 diode but the risks are pretty small.




  Bob . . .
Any chance that due to the seemingly endless variation in designs among brands and even within brands, everybody could be right?

For example, Odyssey says that *their* charger-maintainer can be left connected to their batteries indefinitely, but there are a *lot* of 1st person accounts floating around describing very short lived Odyssey batteries "even though I kept them on a maintainer" (brands unspecified). There are relatively few 1st person accounts (that I've seen) complaining about short lived Odyssey batteries when no 'maintainers' were used.

Charlie[url=#m_-6971088048238445844_m_-716638392855206128_m_4055673255306501323_m_3655902431514137369_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2][/url]


Ken,
That was my point. The percentage of pilots with both the qualifications *and the equipment* to verify that their particular 'maintainer' does what it claims is likely not much better than the percentage of drivers who meet both criteria. And,it's a pretty safe bet that the pilots who have short lived SLA batteries have normal lived batteries in their cars. That's likely because they don't think about the car battery, and just leave it alone.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." (Especially if you don't have the quals & tools for the job.)
The battery doesn't need to be 'maintained' on a half-way frequently flown a/c, any more than the owner's car battery needs to be 'maintained'. So why risk hooking it to something when the owner isn't qualified to judge its suitability for the task?
Charlie


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 6:39 pm    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

Quote:
Any chance that due to the seemingly endless variation in designs among brands and even within brands, everybody could be right?

For example, Odyssey says that *their* charger-maintainer can be left connected to their batteries indefinitely, but there are a *lot* of 1st person accounts floating around describing very short lived Odyssey batteries "even though I kept them on a maintainer" (brands unspecified). There are relatively few 1st person accounts (that I've seen) complaining about short lived Odyssey batteries when no 'maintainers' were used.

Charlie

Ken,

That was my point. The percentage of pilots with both the qualifications *and the equipment* to verify that their particular 'maintainer' does what it claims is likely not much better than the percentage of drivers who meet both criteria. And,it's a pretty safe bet that the pilots who have short lived SLA batteries have normal lived batteries in their cars. That's likely because they don't think about the car battery, and just leave it alone.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." (Especially if you don't have the quals & tools for the job.)

The battery doesn't need to be 'maintained' on a half-way frequently flown a/c, any more than the owner's car battery needs to be 'maintained'. So why risk hooking it to something when the owner isn't qualified to judge its suitability for the task?


But given the cost of suitable
instrumentation is so low . . .

[img]cid:.0[/img]

. . . there's not much standing in the way
of checking things out. One can easily
measure the parasitic leakage of their
favorite maintainer.

Then there are practical design goals.
That 1 mA of current I measured suggests
a voltage sense impedance on the order
of 12,000 ohms. As a general rule,
one doesn't want components in their design
to dissipate any more energy than necessary
to meed operational design goals. 1 mA
is not out of line . . . modern electronics
could probably build a maintainer with
100 MICRO amps of parasitic powered-down
draw. I would be surprised to find one
that sucked 10mA in the powered-down state.

But even 10mA would give us 2,000 hours
to total suck-down. It seems unlikely
that this condition would ever exist.
But if someone believes their maintainer
offers such a risk, it's stone simple
easy to find out.

I mentioned earlier this week that some
MEASUREMENTS of certain qualities in
BALUN design have caused me to re-think
what must have been ASSUMPTIONS on
the part of certain authors . . . assumptions
that I adopted along with countless others.
So when in doubt, go measure the thing . . .
Lord Kelvin would be proud of us!

I'm doing some experiments here that I will
share with learned authors on the 'net
for validation/verification before
an article devoid of assumptions will be crafted
to share results.



Bob . . .


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Joined: 04 Jul 2012
Posts: 132
Location: northern wi.

PostPosted: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:37 am    Post subject: Battery maintainers Reply with quote

what i have ''learned'' and practiced for years with snomo., motorcycle, lawn tractor, anything with a sealed lead acid battery is that every 6-8 weeks put the battery on a tender for a day or 2 off season. they always test about a full charge before i charge them. if they don't they are probably running something in the machine with a minute elect. draw. bob noffs
On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 5:34 PM Ken Ryan <keninalaska(at)gmail.com (keninalaska(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

Quote:
"Why risk hooking it to something when the owner isn't qualified to judge its suitability for the task?" -- Well, first off, once the knowledge of the distinction between a battery maintainer and a battery charger has been acquired, the owner is pretty well qualified. Next thing to consider is that even a single complete discharge can severely damage a battery. And the final ingredient is the observation that although we plan to fly regularly, sh(at)# happens, and it is easy for time to pass. All of this makes me wonder why anyone would prefer not to put the battery on a tender, unless of course doing so is difficult and time consuming. But if the airplane is set up for it, that will not be the case. (And there is nothing like a fresh, fully topped battery for spinning that engine.) As to the comparison to automobiles, I really don't think that is fare. Most people drive their cars daily. A better comparison would be to motorcycles, where owners quickly learn (because of the cost of battery replacement) to put their batteries on tenders at the end of riding season.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 14:13 Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com (ceengland7(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

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On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 4:00 PM Ken Ryan <keninalaska(at)gmail.com (keninalaska(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

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I would be reluctant to trust unverified third party reports on this. I have found that "battery literacy" is quite low. For example, many people think a "trickle charger" is the same thing as a battery maintainer; many people have no idea how bad it is to fully discharge a battery, etc. Then there is the "cause or effect" problem -- i.e. are people with already bad batteries more likely to resort to using a battery tender, and then when the already damaged battery dies, blame it on the tender? I myself have a lot of experience using battery maintainers, all of it good. Based on that, I completely agree with Bob that it is impossible to damage a battery by using a properly functioning battery tender.

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 12:10 PM Charlie England <ceengland7(at)gmail.com (ceengland7(at)gmail.com)> wrote:

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On 7/25/2019 1:56 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote:

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At 12:23 PM 7/25/2019, you wrote:
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Ron,
For reviews check Amazon as the carry them. Read the "minus" reviews first.
For my use, the Battery Tender works well and is about 1/2 the cost.
I have 5 of them on various vehicle batteries and have  not had a failure.

However, there is a potential flaw in most of these low cost maintainers.
If you power the unit from your normal wall power that is controlled by a GFI, that is were the problem lurks.
If the GFI trips for any reason, storms, power outage, etc., etc., and the unit looses power, it will still draw a small current from the battery that it is affixed to.

Not a problem if you catch the problem in a few hours, maybe days.  However, if you are on a trip or other long away time, the maintainer will discharge the battery flat.
They should install a diode in the battery line to prevent back current flow, but, few do.

 I just checked the back-flow into one of my
 Battery Tenders. Measured just under 1 milliamp.

 It would take 20,000 hours (2.3 years)
 to toss off all the energy in a 20 a.h. battery.
 The voltage sense circuitry could indeed be
 calibrated to wash out the voltage drop of a
 diode but the risks are pretty small.




  Bob . . .
Any chance that due to the seemingly endless variation in designs among brands and even within brands, everybody could be right?

For example, Odyssey says that *their* charger-maintainer can be left connected to their batteries indefinitely, but there are a *lot* of 1st person accounts floating around describing very short lived Odyssey batteries "even though I kept them on a maintainer" (brands unspecified). There are relatively few 1st person accounts (that I've seen) complaining about short lived Odyssey batteries when no 'maintainers' were used.

Charlie[url=#m_-7102905767685230837_m_-6971088048238445844_m_-716638392855206128_m_4055673255306501323_m_3655902431514137369_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2][/url]


Ken,
That was my point. The percentage of pilots with both the qualifications *and the equipment* to verify that their particular 'maintainer' does what it claims is likely not much better than the percentage of drivers who meet both criteria. And,it's a pretty safe bet that the pilots who have short lived SLA batteries have normal lived batteries in their cars. That's likely because they don't think about the car battery, and just leave it alone.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." (Especially if you don't have the quals & tools for the job.)
The battery doesn't need to be 'maintained' on a half-way frequently flown a/c, any more than the owner's car battery needs to be 'maintained'. So why risk hooking it to something when the owner isn't qualified to judge its suitability for the task?
Charlie



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