Battery Charging

[Disco EMU]

Thinking that my D2 battery is on it's last legs, I disconnected the battery and stuck it on my Ctek multi-stage smart charger. It should bring it back to life for a little longer ... but my question is do I need to disconnect the battery before charging or can I leave it connected without damaging anything?
Thanks
Craig


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[drivesafe]

Hi Craig, you can charge the battery while it’s in place and you don’t need to disconnect the battery while charging.

[Disco EMU]

Thanx Tim ... I should also mention that it's also hooked up to one of your SC80's.


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[Blknight.aus]

theres one caveat to that, if you have one of the battery charges that does the "desulphation voltage spiking" thing then you should disconnect the battery prior to hooking it up for charging.

haven't seen one take out an ecu but they're quiet good at knocking over switchmode power supplies for laptops.

[Fluids]

Drivesafe's probably right, but my charger when set to "calcium" battery (which is what the std disco starting battery is), does an equalization charge at the end of the charging cycle, and takes the voltage up over 16.2-16.4 volts ...

I usually disconnect the battery because of this higher than usual voltage ... just to be safe ... and as Dave said for the desulphation thing as well.

Just make sure you know your radio code (if it's a std LR fitted radio/cassette/cd) before you disconnect the battery.

[Pacemaker]

For the sake of 30 seconds to disconnect the neg bat terminal and when chargings finished 2 minutes to reconnect and program the stereo its hardly worth the possibility of a surge spike costing possibly $1000.
Michael.

[Disco EMU]

For the sake of 30 seconds to disconnect the neg bat terminal and when chargings finished 2 minutes to reconnect and program the stereo its hardly worth the possibility of a surge spike costing possibly $1000.
Michael.

Yep! Got it!

Thanks everyone.

[drivesafe]

16+v is not going to harm anything in your vehicle.

Automotive electronics will tolerate 18+v and the only thing likely to play up at 18v is your standard light globes.

So again, there is no need to disconnect anything when using a battery charger.

[Fluids]

Thanks Tim. I did actually go and check the chargers manual and it states to disconnect the battery for a calcium battery (auto equalisation) charge, or if an equalisation charge is manually selected for a std lead acid battery ... or for a desulphation charge.

... but being the guru that you are, I'm inclined to eere on your side, voice of experience and all :) Thanks!

On a side note ... the PM i sent you about the USI-160 ... I set it all up temp' using jumper leads and put it thru it's paces. Brilliant! The voltage drop out on shutdown isn't upsetting the USI-160 as I feared it might ... and when the charger on the starting battery went into an equalisation charge for the calcium battery (16.2v), the USI disconnected the AUX lead acid battery at around 14.8v, and reconnected it when the voltage dropped back down. How good is that! ... but you already know that :)

Thanks again.