Mark Hanson wrote: Trojan tells me that I shouldn't equalize unless absolutely necessary, onl when the specific gravity range is greater than +-.015 per cell after charging. This of course is impractical, what anal retentive person is going to check with a hydrometer all their batteries after each charge? This was recommended on their web sight and also by calling. Jim Lean recommended only 4 amps, the C/40 rate for floodeds, in my case T-890's or US8VGC-HD's. Jim said that if I didn't want to check every cell with a hydrometer frequently, I could use my battery scanner to determine this with the following formula: Battery OC cell voltage - .845 = SG per cell.
USBattery on the other hand recommended a 8 amp equalizing charge for 6 hours after every 20 cycles. (This really bubbles the batteries!) <Trojan thought might cause overcharge damage> Which is Correct? Any better recomendations? --------- I've more or less given up on the 8-amp equalizing charge (I did it for 2 hrs) every month, since I found that my end-of-charge currents for a given voltage increased everytime after I did this. I hope I didn't damage the batteries. For instance, when the batteries were new, they would require only about 0.250A to hold them just below gassing at the end-of-charge. Now (they are about 1.5 yrs old and 2500 miles) it requires about 0.8-1.0A. Similiarly for what people call a "finish charge" (7.55V/batt changed from ~1.0A to about 3 to 3.5A). Nawaz even recommended on the list C/8 (11A for something like a T125), but I was doing more like C/11 or 8A. So now I think I will just take them up to about 7.7-7.8V every month at whatever amperage. Chuck Hursch Larkspur, CA www.geocities.com/nbeaa
