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groingo
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 11:43
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Well, the Samlex charger never did begin to put out the power it was supposed to, all documentation said 15 amps up 80% charge, the best it could do was 10, the manufacturer tried to blame it on the "cheap Chinese" amp meter they used on this unit, then all he could do was blame it on being a cheap charger and you get what you pay for was their fallback....$138.00 is not cheap for a piece of junk!
All output tests confirmed it only put out 10 amps.
Back it goes and at this point I am through with this nonsense, gonna keep using the 30 year old Sears charger, looks like in this case when you buy new buyer beware is the number one warning.
P.S. I popped open the Samlex, must be the pacmaging waz made in Taiwan because the guts all have the ROC or just China stamped on them....just anothe lie.
Lesson learned and finally DO NOT BUY FROM BATTERYSTUFF.COM all they sell is JUNK!
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razmichael
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 11:59
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Did you investigate the Sterling brand I mentioned previously? Again - I have not used their chargers but the products I do have have been great - and the charger has great specs with lots of flexibility.
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creeky
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 13:35
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sorry to hear the samlex didn't work out. get an iota or powermax 4 stage charger. it's for offgrid. you can spend the money on a charger or you can spend it on gas and buying batteries more often. it's your choice.
And. what do you care about the output? did it charge your batteries or didn't it? if, as you posted, it charged your batteries in 1/2 the time. man the savings on gas alone ...
my powermax is made in china and it's pretty sweet inside. can't say it's been perfect, but this doesn't look like heaven to me (well. okay, this has been a pretty nice summer, so moments of heaven for sure. esp. having my morning coffee in the summer tent. wait. am I off topic?)
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 15:15 - Edited by: groingo
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Indeed it did (appear) to be charging but what was actually going on was "surface charging" or Stratification....the charge was superficial and witbin 6 hours had all but vanished.
Output is critcal, I paid for a charger that promised in writing a 15 amp charge till it reached 80% charge and even on a totally dead battery only showed an output of 10 amps which,was verified on the multi meter, external amp meter and load tester.
Input is critical too as that determines generator load and fuel requirement over time which is key.
One good thing I did take away from this is tbe need to shake the batteries up or move the fluid around so the batteries now set on a battery rocker so I can rock the batteries to slosh and keep the fluid mixed....will see how that goes.
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 22:52
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An opinion FWIW. IIRC you have 2 Crown golf cart batteries. 235 amp-hours? 225? If so the best charge rate would be C/10 to C/8. That works out to a charge rate of 22 to 30 amps, round numbers. I believe the main issue was more that the charger was undersized for the task at hand.
Also, IIRC, you chose the 15 amp because it made the generator run at a slower and theoretically more fuel efficient pace.
If those assumptions are incorrect then this opinion is non valid.
It is my belief that a charge rate of 15 amps is low, too low to provide a good mixing action of the electrolyte. It is my opinion you or anyone else and especially the batteries would be better served by using a 25 to 30 amp charger as a minimum. A three stage charger or better yet a four stage so the batteries can be equalized once in a while. Yes, the generator may work harder and might use more fuel, but that might be countered by the batteries being charged more quickly. Fewer hours run time using a little more fuel per hour could conceivably use less fuel in total. A side benefit may be longer battery life.
As for having to shake or rock 'n' roll the batteries that can't hurt. Car batteries get agitated regularly. Just be careful with the acid.
But, OTOH our GC-2's were placed in service in July '09 and have been shuffled around, not shaken a few times since. They do not have a problem receiving a charge that "sticks". They do get equalized when the hydrometer reading indicate a need. Then the gassing churns the electrolyte quite well. I can tell as a couple of years ago I began noticing a grayness after equalizing... that happens as the miniscule lead flakes that inevitably comes off the plates gets mixed around by the off gassing. A natural part of aging with all batteries, even the well cared for ones.
FYI, the ROC is Taiwan. It's the PROC that is mainland China.
A side note: I love the Iota charger line. My oldest is over 10 years old and as dependable as the day I bought it. They use a PWM type of charging (many higher than average voltage spikes) that seems to be kind to battery longevity. Their IQ4 adapter gives true 3 stage charging with equalizing on a timed basis. That only works when plugged into a constant power source like the grid. However, they can be tweaked to raise the voltage setting and thus be used in a manually selected equalize mode.
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2014 23:18 - Edited by: groingo
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Don:
The charger even when hooked to a completely dead zero spark battery only put out ten amps though the scale went to 15 and instructions clearly said tbat it would do a bulk charge such at 15 amps then begin to taper off after reaching 70 to 80% charge....it never got close to 15 amps period.
You mentioned gassing, that could well have been part of the problem because this charge expressly prevented gassing by sensing and reducing amperage for just that reason thus very little mixing was going on.
The key problem was the surface charging where it ran the numbers up quickly and just a quickly fell backwards....there was no depth to the charge.
The straw that really broke the back was Samlex's attitude on the phone while still searching for a solution before making the decision to return where all the could do is blame the amp meter for being bad because is was Chinese junk (their words not mine) then he told me it was just a cheap charger that I should have bought a more expensive one when the sole reason I bought the charger not by price but by meeting a requirement.
Will be calling Iota tomorrow, looks like it has the power boost feature I am looking for and it cost much less than the Samlex I just returned will look at the 15 and 30.
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buckybuck
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# Posted: 6 Aug 2014 10:43
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I am by no means an expert on these sorts of things, and honestly don't have much interest in learning more, but will point out you can save a few bucks on the Iota by getting one without the IQ4 three-stage option. My understanding is that the IQ4 option is useful if you keep your battery hooked up to the charger most of the time, but if all you want to do is charge a battery as quickly as possible, you don't need it.
Here's where I got that contention: URL
As has been pointed out, there's a small hole on the back of these. It's got a piece of tape covering the hole from the inside. Punch it out and you'll see a screw that you can use to adjust the POT and jack the voltage up to 14.1, 14.5 5 or 14.7 volts or whatever for a better charging rate, depending on which expert you trust.
My Iota is the 45 amp model, which is probably way too much for how I'm using it these days.
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groingo
Member
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# Posted: 6 Aug 2014 22:09
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Glad you mentioned the pots, checked my old Sears 10 amp charger and sure enought there were two pots one for manual and one for auto so adjusted voltage per Crown battery specs and will see soon how it went.
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