Battery Chargers

[dogbreath_48]

I'm in the market for a battery charger. It will initially be used to charge my lead acid starter and AGM deep cycle, but may be used on various battery types in the future.

The only two brands i've looked into who seem to make what i'm after are projecta and cetek with their IC1500 and mxs15 respectively.

The Projecta charger claims to use different charge patterns for different types of battery (user selected), with 7 stages of charging including regenerative/restoration stage. The cetek claims to use 7 stage charging too (along with restoration mode to relieve the battery of acid stratification), but doesn't offer a select-able charge cycle for different types of battery.

Can anybody comment on their experience with these chargers? Is all the above jargon just marketing hype? I've looked into the theory of various restoration techniques and it does seem to make sense but i'm not sure how important different charge cycles are for different types of battery.

What other brands should i be looking at? I'm after something in the 10-20A range. Out of the two above, i'm leaning towards the Projecta due to it's more impressive finish, lower cost and chemistry sensitive charging selection.

Thanks for reading!


-Stu

[Lepa]

i've been told to charge an agm type battery the charger must have a specific setting for that type of battery. apart from that i can't help

[tomzilla]

I've got a projecta - they do a good job and have a variety of charging levels. apparently it all helps to prolong the life of the battery - ie trickle charging and reconditioning. just make sure the one you buy allows you to charge a 100% flat battery (ie have an override button). Some need to recognise a charge before they initiaite...

[wheeleybin]

Both batteries you have are lead acid batteries and cranking batteries are normally open flooded wet cell and they would charge at 14.7-14.8V . The AGM Deep cycle is a sealed battery and it is imperative to know what it is as there are two types of AGM batteries with ones that are high resistance low recombination and ones that are low resistance and high recombination.
Most high resistance low recombination batteries AGM have a limited input capacity and show a charge rate of between 14.4-14.9V at 25oC but the alternate Low resistance high recombination batteries can take high amp input charge but at only 14.2-14.4V at 25oC maximum and are voltage sensitive so as the ambient temperature climbs so does the voltage input you charger will put into the batteries so it is easy to kill batteries in Australia with over voltage and the way to reduce this risk is have a charger with the ability to be set for different charge voltages to suit the different chemistry of the batteries and also have temperature compensation that reduces the charge voltage as the battery temperature rises.
The first AGM mentioned is normally of Asian origin with the second AGM being mainly of USA origin being designs back in the middle 1980's for the US Army and are a lot more expensive than the Asian type as the higher the recombination percentage of the batteries the higher the cost is.
If you think that the sealed AGM can charge the same as the open lead acid you can kill the deep cycle AGM because they are sealed and if they lose water it cannot be replaced where the lead acid is more forgiving as you can top up the water so do not fell into the trap assuming that the 14.9V being higher than 14.8V so it should be OK as it surely is not and remember if you do not live in the colder areas of Australia you are more often than not running in excess of 25oC ambient temperature.
Ian