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Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:43 am

I have a nice 140 AH flooded lead acid aux battery.
From time to time you need to bring the battery up to 16v for about 45 minutes to equalize the cells within the battery. ( couple of times a year)
My battery was losing performance so I brought it back to where I bought it and they did an equalization charge on it. The battery was fully restored to its previous power and the Specific Gravity went back to where it should be on a fully charged battery.
My battery charger does not have an equalization mode, not can I find any run of the mill chargers that do.
What are people doing to accomplish an equalization charge?
thanks

Tue Dec 01, 2020 12:51 am

Search "equalization battery charger" on Amazon?

Equalization is done to a fully charged battery, so it doesn't take a big charger.
But if you bought a $20 unit you might want to disconnect the battery completely so any other loads don't suck down your equalization charge.

Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:30 am

Didn't see anything on Amazon and of course it was the first place I checked.
Yes, equalization is only performed on a fully charged battery which absolutely needs to be out of the circuit.

Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:44 pm

jocoman wrote: Didn't see anything on Amazon and of course it was the first place I checked.
Yes, equalization is only performed on a fully charged battery which absolutely needs to be out of the circuit.

Nah, it can stay in the circuit just fine. Just keep your loads turned off or at least anything that's very voltage sensitive.

Got solar? Get a decent controller that will equalize for you. Or buy a $40-$50 adjustable power supply and use that.

Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:37 pm

I got a noco genius10 this summer and haven’t had a ton of time to play.

A couple key features. It has a desulfator function and a force mode to hard charge a low volt battery. Plus it supports AGM charge profiles so you don’t damage a deep cycle battery. Among other things.

Kind of inexpensive on Amazon for $80.

Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:09 am

rmcd wrote: I got a noco genius10 this summer and haven’t had a ton of time to play.

A couple key features. It has a desulfator function and a force mode to hard charge a low volt battery.

glad some are finally adding that feature. i keep old manual chargers around to bring up completely dead batteries. the new ones won't chooch with just a couple volts left in the batt.

Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:22 pm

I have battery monitor and will test the peak voltage with force mode and report back.

Thu Dec 03, 2020 11:39 am

Exactly. I'll be surprised if it gets up to equalization voltages.
Trojan recommends 16.2v for 45 minutes a couple of times a year. depending on
the condition of the battery. If the S.G. is same across cells, you may not need to equalize.

Sat Dec 05, 2020 4:06 am

You can do equalization with a cheap dumb charger (just leave on until the voltage reaches 15V) or with a CC/CV power supply.
The power supply method is probably better as you can use low current.