Battery Info

[Too many Kubotas]

A battery balancer is a good idea.

For all of my chargers, there has been no need to take the batteries apart in order to charge them individually: I can just connect each one up to a different battery while all of the batteries are still connected to the vehicle. (I suppose it's possible to have a charger where this could be a problem, but I have not yet run into a modern charger that exhibits this problem.)


a 24V charger will not restore balance to two 12V batteries connected in series. If they are out of balance, they will generally remain so when charging with a 24V charger: you will continue to have one battery in the series string undercharged and the other overcharged.

Interestingly enough, when taking the 24 V solar charger off this afternoon I checked the voltages on all four batteries. The two "dead" ones (with desufation) had about a 1/10 V higher voltage than the two good ones. Still not good specific gravity, though.

Somehow I've never heard of a battery balancer before, despite having had many vehicles with multiple batteries. Currently it's 10 of them, plus three trailers, so maybe I should look into getting some of those.

Also, took the little NOCO off of the (formerly) good battery and put it on a smaller size AGM battery, about 25 years old and dead for the past 10 or so.
It did begin to charge it, and this NOCO is definitely high voltage pulses instead of the high frequency I'm used to. It jumped between 8 and change and 18+.

 

[stevem5215]

I have both NOCO and Ctek. Both are good chargers. I think the CTek handles the charging differently for sulfonated batteries. I've had good luck keeping mine up. Including my 17' Ridgeline FLA battery. It lasted 8 years and I'm sure Ctek helped to do that. I just replaced it in October.

 

[LittleBill21]

It jumped between 8 and change and 18+.

how are you determining this, 18+ would actually damage electronics

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Those are generally maxed out at 100amps, you should test batteries at 50% of rated CCA. SO A 550 CCA battery should be tested at 225 amp draw for i believe its 10-15 seconds. Mine beeps when its done.

My carbon pyle tester is also harbor freight, but its rated 500 amps. I dont see that anymore, now they have a 1000 amp model.

After i hit a battery with the carbon pyle tester, i then test it with electronic Midtronics tester. The battery must pass both, or i replace it. I maintain lots of generator batteries, plus lots of my own.

Both brands of tune up scopes I used to repair (1980's) did the crankdown battery test for 15 seconds to determine capacity.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

how are you determining this, 18+ would actually damage electronics

With a simple voltmeter. And I doubt that there are any electronics in that old battery.

 

[LittleBill21]

With a simple voltmeter. And I doubt that there are any electronics in that old battery.

yea that seems pretty off to me. I have never seen that, especially the ability to see it bounce like that. normal meters can't see pulse's. is this the one amp model?

 

[John_Mc]

With a simple voltmeter. And I doubt that there are any electronics in that old battery.

I'm guessing it wasn't the battery he was concerned about (not many have built in electronics, though it is becoming more common in some of the newer designs). It would be whatever electronics are in the vehicle if the battery is not disconnected before charging.

 

[number two]

Guys,I really like my new-fangled battery tester.
Solar BA9
About $60-65
Works pretty good.
I have a toaster,but like this one better!
Good Luck!

 

[bigdeer2000]

I have a 2008 Kubota 95x with original Kubota battery. It stays in a barn with no power so I bring it out to the shop a couple of times during the winter to charge battery. I keep thinking this is the last year it will make it but it hasn’t let me down yet. After bragging on it now I am sure I will be replacing it soon!

 

[Xfaxman]

Guys,I really like my new-fangled battery tester.
Solar BA9
About $60-65
Works pretty good.
I have a toaster,but like this one better!
Good Luck!

Looks like a good company. in Kansas: 40-1200 CCA 12 Volt Digital Battery & System Tester - Clore Automotive

 

[Too many Kubotas]

yea that seems pretty off to me. I have never seen that, especially the ability to see it bounce like that. normal meters can't see pulse's. is this the one amp model?

It wasn't a high frequency fluctuation by a long shot, rather about 1.5 to 2 second "waves". Being used to high frequency desulfation but not the high voltage version it was a complete surprise to me.

Noticed it when checking if the little NOCO 1914 was doing anything, and will check again in a little bit. Pretty sure that's a 1-Amp version. It didn't come with any instructions.

I'm guessing it wasn't the battery he was concerned about (not many have built in electronics, though it is becoming more common in some of the newer designs). It would be whatever electronics are in the vehicle if the battery is not disconnected before charging.

In this case it's a Honda generator, from the '80s I think, so I didn't bother disconnecting the battery. Actually, probably wouldn't have anyway since I have never seen that kind of behavior from a battery maintainer.

 

[LittleBill21]

It wasn't a high frequency fluctuation by a long shot, rather about 1.5 to 2 second "waves". Being used to high frequency desulfation but not the high voltage version it was a complete surprise to me.

Noticed it when checking if the little NOCO 1914 was doing anything, and will check again in a little bit. Pretty sure that's a 1-Amp version. It didn't come with any instructions.

In this case it's a Honda generator, from the '80s I think, so I didn't bother disconnecting the battery. Actually, probably wouldn't have anyway since I have never seen that kind of behavior from a battery maintainer.

I don't know what a 1914 is. the 1 amp is called genius 1, instructions are underneath the cables.

you definitely have something weird going on. 18+v is wrong. If I get my truck fixed today, I may hook up the genius 1 to an oscilloscope and see the range, it really shouldn't be over 15v.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Yes, it's a Genius 1, says 1914 on the box, and there were no instructions. Found them by typing "noco 1914" into Google.

It's typical for me it seems, and the new welder didn't come with instructions, either. Well, they're on a thumb drive that was included, but that's not overly practical for the application.

 

[LittleBill21]

oh, I see it now, yea thats the year the company was founded. has nothing to do with the model of charger

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Checked the well aged Predator battery, and (not surprisingly) the NOCO had quit and showed "Bad battery", just like it did with the formerly good battery. Well, this time it was at least correct.

Started it again and checked the voltage. Now it fluctuated between 7.80 (about what the battery was at before) and 19.44 V.

Meanwhile the two BatteryMINDers that were hooked up on the four battery setup yesterday evening are just doing their thing. Also not surprisingly.

 

[LittleBill21]

isn't your 4 battery having some kind of issue as well? isn't that other post and now you desulfators running trying to recover.

i will put mine on the scope. I have never seen voltages anywhere near that with any noco.

 

[LittleBill21]

So I threw this on an oscilloscope, on a battery that is bad. (4.76v) I am seeing a 18.9v pulse exactly 1 second in duration with mv amperage.

what this means.

The battery is bad. the noco attempts to pulse amperage into it, it doesn't take the amperage because its bad, unless the voltage climbs over 18v, where I assume it can finally break the resistance.

The issue I have is I don't have a good loose battery. I expect these pulses to be much lower with a battery that can take a charge.

The HF units I used did no testing of any kind they just dumped 13.2 out whether the battery took it or not.

I think the noco is actually testing whether the battery is taking amperage.

I have taken multiple batteries off the tender at 13.2 and they are totally useless, drops to 9v over a 1amp charge.

I need to find another battery to test against.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

isn't your 4 battery having some kind of issue as well? isn't that other post and now you desulfators running trying to recover.

Yeah, I'm feeding the two "end" batteries gently, with low amp maintainers. It's not really for the desulfation, but I have very few maintainers without that feature, and it can't hurt anything.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

The HF units I used did no testing of any kind they just dumped 13.2 out whether the battery took it or not.

Whoa! Whoda thunk the Harbor Freight ones aren't the best technology possible?!?

Well, I strongly suspected that they aren't good maintainers, but didn't expect them to be simple power supplies.

 

[LittleBill21]

Whoa! Whoda thunk the Harbor Freight ones aren't the best technology possible?!?

Well, I strongly suspected that they aren't good maintainers, but didn't expect them to be simple power supplies.

thats what 99% of them are.

they are nothing more then a ac/dc transformer to a buck converter.

these noco's and everything else all they are doing is using a computer to PWM a higher voltage to "hopefully" break up the sulfication on the plates.

there is no magic here. you need to actually load a battery to keep it healthy, adding load cycler would cost to much.

In my commercial job. those batteries actually load themselves to shut off and recharge (multiple redundant batteries in system ) to find out when they are actually bad.

I have seen people bring batteries back by boiling them, after rolling them down a hill to shake up the acid mixture.