Battery charger options...
Discussion
Hello Perry, hope you are well.
It does seem that reading between the lines the cheaper chargers are fine on gel batteries and your experiences support this. I think the problem with the cracked Odyssey batteries has come from the Ctek smart battery chargers when they go into the 'recondition' phase as this overcharges the battery. I note their new range of smart chargers have an AGM mode which drops this phase from their smart charging programme. From my limited understanding the cheaper chargers and entry level Cteks simply pulse the battery which is fine for AGM / Gell batteries. I think it is a case of some chargers being too smart for their own good.
Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the new engine.
It does seem that reading between the lines the cheaper chargers are fine on gel batteries and your experiences support this. I think the problem with the cracked Odyssey batteries has come from the Ctek smart battery chargers when they go into the 'recondition' phase as this overcharges the battery. I note their new range of smart chargers have an AGM mode which drops this phase from their smart charging programme. From my limited understanding the cheaper chargers and entry level Cteks simply pulse the battery which is fine for AGM / Gell batteries. I think it is a case of some chargers being too smart for their own good.
Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the new engine.
I know I've already said it but I really can't stress strongly enough if you have an AGM battery you absolutely must only use an AGM charger on it, and you must select the AGM setting, failure to do so will result in the dramatically reduced life of your AGM battery.
Under normal conditions an AGM will tolerate the rather crude charging pattern delivered by your alternator, but no matter what battery type you have never jump start your car if your battery has become discharged... unless you are in a real emergency 'get me out of here' situation. The jump start wont do much harm in itself, but as soon as the engine is running the alternator's regulator will sense the low battery condition and try to dump as many amps as it can in the battery, and as quickly as it possibly can.
This is brutal on a normal flooded battery and will almost certainly kill it dead, but on an AGM battery its even worse!
Modern cars with stop start technology all use AGM batteries, this is because stop start technology would kill a normal flooded lead acid battery in no time at all. The new generation of stop start cars always have a battery management system (BMS) or intelligent battery sensor (IBS), this is a very clever computer that functions in much the same way as my Ring RSCPR50 charger to ensure the AGM battery is correctly maintained.
AGM batteries are fantastic if you look after them correctly, but if you treat them like a traditional flooded battery (or worse still execute a jump start) they'll be sure to fail prematurely. If the OP had put his discharged Odyssey PC925 on my AGM friendly Ring RSCPR50 charger I'd put money on it being completely recovered within 12 hours.
AGM batteries are super low resistance so trying to charge a fully discharged one on a regular battery charger would do noting because the charger wouldn't even recognise it was connected to a battery, if you did manage to get the charging process started by say connecting another 12v battery then the regular battery charger will likely kill your AGM battery anywaay.
In summary, if you move to an AGM battery (and you should), you really must buy yourself a proper AGM friendly battery charger too!
NB: If you have a modern car with stop start technology and the battery dies I recommend having it changed by your main dealer, because the car's battery has to be integrated into the system and paired with the BMS/IBS, which requires specialist equipment.
Don't you just love modern cars
Under normal conditions an AGM will tolerate the rather crude charging pattern delivered by your alternator, but no matter what battery type you have never jump start your car if your battery has become discharged... unless you are in a real emergency 'get me out of here' situation. The jump start wont do much harm in itself, but as soon as the engine is running the alternator's regulator will sense the low battery condition and try to dump as many amps as it can in the battery, and as quickly as it possibly can.
This is brutal on a normal flooded battery and will almost certainly kill it dead, but on an AGM battery its even worse!
Modern cars with stop start technology all use AGM batteries, this is because stop start technology would kill a normal flooded lead acid battery in no time at all. The new generation of stop start cars always have a battery management system (BMS) or intelligent battery sensor (IBS), this is a very clever computer that functions in much the same way as my Ring RSCPR50 charger to ensure the AGM battery is correctly maintained.
AGM batteries are fantastic if you look after them correctly, but if you treat them like a traditional flooded battery (or worse still execute a jump start) they'll be sure to fail prematurely. If the OP had put his discharged Odyssey PC925 on my AGM friendly Ring RSCPR50 charger I'd put money on it being completely recovered within 12 hours.
AGM batteries are super low resistance so trying to charge a fully discharged one on a regular battery charger would do noting because the charger wouldn't even recognise it was connected to a battery, if you did manage to get the charging process started by say connecting another 12v battery then the regular battery charger will likely kill your AGM battery anywaay.
In summary, if you move to an AGM battery (and you should), you really must buy yourself a proper AGM friendly battery charger too!
NB: If you have a modern car with stop start technology and the battery dies I recommend having it changed by your main dealer, because the car's battery has to be integrated into the system and paired with the BMS/IBS, which requires specialist equipment.
Don't you just love modern cars
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