Traxide vs. Redarc

Hi landoman, you are not understanding what you are seeing.

Your batteries are NOT holding a charge, they are simply holding a voltage.

Without an applied load, the voltage is irrelevant.

Your SC80 has a known current load and based on that known current load, your batteries are going flat way too quickly, again meaning they are NOT holding a full charge.

My guess is that your batteries are down to around 50% of their full capacity.

To your question and no, do not use the RECONDITION cycle, as it hits the batteries with a 15.8v charge and that is way, WAY to high for any AGM, just use the standard multi stage charging and make sure you put the charger on at night and turn it off each morning, or in reverse if that suits you.

Do not just put the charger on and leave it on for a week as this will not rejuvenate your batteries.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by landoman

When got home I removed the positive and negative leads from the starter I also took the traxide lead off the starter so the starter was completely stand alone not connected to anything . The traxide was still connected to the optima and the earth spot but not the starter
I monitored both batteries over 2 days
Optima went from 12.93 to 12.88
Starter went from 13.24 to 12.93

So both appeared to be holding their charge

This is why I think the sc80 is drawing a lot out of my batteries and I don’t understand why

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by landoman

They hold charge when disconnected from the traxide and lose it when hooked up to it

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You and I have different definitions of holding a charge.

The optima is, the starter is not.

I get less drain down than that on a single n55 starter in a disco1 tdi300 with it still hooked up to the vehicle..

and remember with the optima connected to the traxide and assuming the traxide was in the batteries connected configuration the optima is driving the insignificant draw of the traxide itself AND if you left the traxide hooked up to the starting batteries leads whatever is drawing power on that lead.

without going into the whole whiteman mathamagic of batteries your batteries produce a voltage based upon the amount of amperage they have available to push out into a load (its the whole V=IxR thing) if you've got a battery thats loosing volts with no load on it then its not charged or self discharging. IT could also be damaged, you only have to drop a battery once in just the right way and its done. You may not have, but how about the guy at the factory, the guy loading it to the truck, unloading it at the store, putting it on the shelf, getting it from the rack out the back......

right off the top of my head, a fully charged cell in a 12V flooded lead acid battery should be sitting at about 2.2v which over 6 cells is 13.2V.
at 80% it will be about 2.1V per cell for 12.6
50% is something like 1.9 per cellfor 11.4v
10% is about 1.8v per cell aroundt 10.8

if you have one failing cell its going to screw the whole shebang. as not only is it not contributing to the game but its also going to be actively drawing power when the load goes on.

and yes you can hook the 3884 calcium sereis of flooded cell batteries onto most chargers with a rejuvination cycle, I generally just hook anything thats not lithium up to the solar system on arkie and let that and the alternator have at em for a couple of weeks. If its an AGM and I can be bothered I'll pull the anderson to the main battery bank and flick the solar controller to its agm settings but thats just extra work I'm too lazy to be bothered with because it means I have to rememebr to undo it when Im done.

Ok I won’t set to recon
Just use the normal battery charge

And I may not be understanding what I’m seeing .....but I do know that with both batteries only about 3 months old something is not right


I will but on normal ctek cycle for 5 nights
turning off each morning and turning on in each night

Yes, they should be fine after only three months, unless a battery has dropped a cell or there is a drain.
Is the vehicle left locked? Unlocked vehicles can wake up repeatedly and run tests, causing a drain. Just a thought.

Give em a good charge. Leave em separate, The whole time.. have a Auto sparky test them.. Super cheap.. Repco etc. Do this for free

Good suggestion
I’ll charge them for 5 or 6 days as suggested
Then have them both tested

Also is it possible that you can over charge a battery with a ctek

I have seperated the optima and the starter
So I can charge the starter every night and rest it during the day then change the setting from normal battery to AGM and charge the optima
During the day while the starter gets a rest

Hi sandman, just leave the charger set for AGMs, and it will easily and safely charge both batteries properly.

Also can some one explain in simple non technical language how charging the battery for 5 nights rejuvenates it

Ps
I need to add both batteries are 8 months old
not 3 months old .....my mistake. Time flys when you are having fun

But at 8 months I Would not expect them to have lost capacity to hold charge

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi sandman, just leave the charger set for AGMs, and it will easily and safely charge both batteries properly.

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I have seperated the two batteries
The optima is now out of my car at the moment

I had read that the AGM setting on the ctek
Should not be used on normal wet batteries
.....so it’s ok is it ?