optima battery charger???

[Friesen Motorsports]

Any good suggestions for a automatic 12volt battery charger, for optima battery. Needs to maintian the battery for up to 3 months sometimes.

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[glamiskid395]

battery tender
http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender.../dp/B00068XCQU

use it on all my optimas, its the only charger i've found that says it can be used on optima style batteries. and it can be left hooked up/plugged in for as long as you need.

[07FJRog]

schumacker brand from walmart, works great as well, 3 models to choose from, does std, dry and gel batteries.

[SoCalRally]

I've had a good experience with the Battery Tender brand too. I have a small 0.75A one that works fine for maintaining a float charge on a battery, and for moderate charging needs. However, I recently had occasion to want to charge the dual AGMs (930 CCA * 2) connected in parallel in my diesel, and found that 0.75A wasn't really enough to charge close to 2000 CCAs in a reasonable anount of time, so I recenly bought their 5A charger (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DU3S9A/), which is much better suited for that type of scenario.

[philofab]

I recommend the 2012-AGM BatteryMINDer. It was developed for AGM batteries and has more built in protections and features than the Battery Tender.

[utahsbest]

Rizk makes sweet chargers here in the US.

[Ol' Curmudgeon]

What's the scoop on charging an Optima? A friend just "loaned" a me red top that has been sitting for nine months.

It only read 8v. I've put it on charge at 1.5 amps.

IIRC, there is something special about recharging Optimas and other gel batteries, but does that issue only apply to fast charging?

What makes these battery chargers better?

Thanks!

[SoCalRally]

What's the scoop on charging an Optima? A friend just "loaned" a me red top that has been sitting for nine months.

It only read 8v. I've put it on charge at 1.5 amps.

IIRC, there is something special about recharging Optimas and other gel batteries, but does that issue only apply to fast charging?

What makes these battery chargers better?

Thanks!

Most batteries read approx 10.5V when drained. Whether you'll be able to revive a battery that reads as low as 8V remains to be seen, but I guess you'll find out soon enough. If you are able to revive it, most likely some of its useful life will have been reduced by sitting at that low a voltage for a significant period of time.

Every battery has an ideal bulk charge voltage & charging profile etc. Good battery chargers can auto-detect the battery type and use an appropriate battery charging profile.

Some of the features that make battery chargers good are a multi-stage charging profile e.g. Initialization, Bulk, Absorption, & Float / Maintenance (instead of just charging at a specific voltage & current at a constant rate), and also error detection e.g. short circuit protection, reverse polarity connection, excessive load protection etc. Some chargers are also capable of high current pulse conditioning to achieve desulfation (the breaking down of sulfate crystals that have formed on the battery plates).

[CraigMT]

What's the scoop on charging an Optima? A friend just "loaned" a me red top that has been sitting for nine months.

It only read 8v. I've put it on charge at 1.5 amps.

IIRC, there is something special about recharging Optimas and other gel batteries, but does that issue only apply to fast charging?

What makes these battery chargers better?

Thanks!

Most of the new battery chargers won't recharge an Optima if it's below 10 or 11 volts. You have to fool it into thinking its charging just a 'low' versus 'discharged' battery:

Take a set of jumper cables and any auto battery that is at 12 volts, hook the cables up as if you were jumping the Optima. (positive to positive, neg to neg.)

Attach the charger to the Optima as you normally would, set to 1.5 amps and let it charge. This fools the newer chargers in to thinking it's working on 'good' battery.

I've had good experience bringing back a Gel cell battery from the dead this way.

Hope this tracks with the question in the thread...

[SoCalRally]

@Ol' Curmudgeon: As Craig mentioned, if the Optima is just deeply discharged/sulfated, and doesn't have a shorted cell, sometimes you can use a known good battery to equalize the charge between the 2 batteries in order to trick a smart charger into charging the battery.

Optima has a video on this here:


Optima also has their own YouTube channel here (most of the tech tips videos are on the earlier pages):
http://www.youtube.com/user/OptimaBatteries/videos