Pulse Battery Maintainers (was Pulse Charging)

[Reworked LMTV]

Me too, which is why I was trying to point out (perhaps not clearly enough) that you can get a good NOCO charger for about the same as the Chinese ones, if you look around.


"Designed and engineered in the USA. Over 100 years of American ingenuity and vision." They're a US company, though I'm sure at least parts of their stuff are manufactured in China (like everything electronic). https://no.co/about-us


If the battery is truly dead, no fancy charger is going to help that. If it has a dead cell, no fancy charger is going to help. There are a lot of problems it won't help. But if your battery has some mild sulfation problems and stuff, they can help reverse those, and then keep it maintained going forward.

The small NOCO chargers do just fine, they're just lower amperage (for the most part... there are some feature differences). For example, I use a little NOCO charger to tend my tractor battery over the winter, because it sits for 5-6 months getting below freezing every night. In 13 years since I bought the tractor new, I've only replaced the battery once, maybe 4 years ago. As I posted earlier, the batteries my LMTV came with lasted ~5 more years, by charging and maintaining with the NOCO Gen4.

The NOCO chargers are designed to be left plugged in. They automatically monitor the battery, charge when needed, desulfate when needed, etc., so that they keep the battery as maintained as possible.

I can't say other brands of "smart chargers" wouldn't work as good, but I'm definitely satisfied with NOCO.

I believe someone on this forum had issues with NOCO. Don't recall what they were.

 

[Awesomeness]

I believe someone on this forum had issues with NOCO. Don't recall what they were.

Where are you going with that? You think the Chinese chargers are likely better?

 

[Reworked LMTV]

Where are you going with that? You think the Chinese chargers are likely better?

I was trying to recall what someone had said about them. There are plenty of threads on NOCO. https://www.steelsoldiers.com/threads/on-board-battery-charger.178958/#post-2133596

 

[Third From Texas]

Where are you going with that? You think the Chinese chargers are likely better?

Well there are always a percentage of bad reviews on Amazon.

But that's true with all electronics, really.

I'm not dissing NOCO I just want to try something cheap with a reasonable amp output that can be run while attended. NOCO's get a bit pricy in the 6-10a range.

I can coax the magic smoke out of anything, though.

 

[Awesomeness]

I was trying to recall what someone had said about them. There are plenty of threads on NOCO. https://www.steelsoldiers.com/threads/on-board-battery-charger.178958/#post-2133596

I wonder what Simp thinks are "junk" about them? That's a pretty bold statement, with absolutely nothing said to support it. I know my experience with them has been very good, and I now have a handful of old chargers around collecting dust (that I should just get rid of). Even on Amazon, the NOCO stuff has 4.5+/5 ratings after many thousands of reviews. https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=noco+charger&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

The biggest complaint I have about my NOCO Gen4 is that the four mounting holes are tiny. It's like a 15lb charger, being held on my LMTV by four tiny screws... #4 I think. But it hasn't fallen off yet, and the new Gen4 replacement they just released has two mounting slots that are much larger.

 

[Reworked LMTV]

I wonder what Simp thinks are "junk" about them? That's a pretty bold statement, with absolutely nothing said to support it. I know my experience with them has been very good, and I now have a handful of old chargers around collecting dust (that I should just get rid of). Even on Amazon, the NOCO stuff has 4.5+/5 ratings after many thousands of reviews. https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=noco+charger&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

The biggest complaint I have about my NOCO Gen4 is that the four mounting holes are tiny. It's like a 15lb charger, being held on my LMTV by four tiny screws... #4 I think. But it hasn't fallen off yet, and the new Gen4 replacement they just released has two mounting slots that are much larger.

Best to ask him.

 

[Reworked LMTV]

Well there are always a percentage of bad reviews on Amazon.

But that's true with all electronics, really.

I'm not dissing NOCO I just want to try something cheap with a reasonable amp output that can be run while attended. NOCO's get a bit pricy in the 6-10a range.

I can coax the magic smoke out of anything, though.

To save money, look for Amazon returns.

 

[Awesomeness]

To save money, look for Amazon returns.

Definitely, when it's sold by "Amazon Warehouse" and marked as "Used - Like New", it basically means the box is just damaged.

 

[Third From Texas]

To save money, look for Amazon returns.

But the magic smoke has often been let out of those.

(don't ask me how I know, but like I said I'm very good at releasing that)

;p

 

[Ronmar]

Mmmm Love me some magic smoke

 

[Ohiobenz]

Don’t forget, a 24V input will not compensate for battery imbalance caused be a 12V vampire load...

Run through a Bussman Equalizer input it takes care of the balancing.

 

[TechnoWeenie]

Run through a Bussman Equalizer input it takes care of the balancing.

$400 for an equalizer, or $100 for a 2 bank charger/maintainer?

 

[Third From Texas]

$400 for an equalizer, or $100 for a 2 bank charger/maintainer?

Sure, if you buy from a surplus flipper.

Or you can buy one for $100 direct from auction (where the flippers get them).

 

[Ohiobenz]

$400 for an equalizer, or $100 for a 2 bank charger/maintainer?

I got the Bussman off ebay for under $200 open box....
It was part of the 200A 24v serpentine belt and AC conversion project... so the Equalizer part was sort of a freebie.
The real additional cost were the PV panel and Victron MPPT.

 

[TechnoWeenie]

Personally, I would feed 2 smaller solar panels into 2 charge controllers, one for each battery....Then it'd be practically maintenance-free with no requirement for 110v... But, that's just mission ready stuff, not bringing back dead/depleted batteries... Plus, you'd be able to tap off of one of the batteries with small loads without having to worry about an imbalance..

But a battery equalizer is another way to do it, for sure.

 

[Ronmar]

You can get a basic 5A balancer for $25...

 

[TechnoWeenie]

You can get a basic 5A balancer for $25...

Passive? So if you have a bad battery, it drags both of them down? Unfortunately, that's how the passive balancers work. They will use the higher voltage battery to discharge into the lower voltage battery until the voltage is the same. If you have a failing battery with a dead cell, or sulfated plates, you end up with 2 dead batteries instead of just one questionable one... Worst case scenario, that is...

There's no perfect solution. It'll all depend on what your use case is... For most people, a simple 24V charger/maintainer is fine. I'm a little picky when it comes to electrical, so my solution would try to cover as many possibilities as possible, and in doing so, also make things complicated with more potential points of failure, heh.

 

[Ronmar]

Passive? So if you have a bad battery, it drags both of them down? Unfortunately, that's how the passive balancers work. They will use the higher voltage battery to discharge into the lower voltage battery until the voltage is the same. If you have a failing battery with a dead cell, or sulfated plates, you end up with 2 dead batteries instead of just one questionable one... Worst case scenario, that is...

There's no perfect solution. It'll all depend on what your use case is... For most people, a simple 24V charger/maintainer is fine. I'm a little picky when it comes to electrical, so my solution would try to cover as many possibilities as possible, and in doing so, also make things complicated with more potential points of failure, heh.

No it has a low volt cutoff..., but it would be used in conjunction with a charger/maintainer, so I doubt it would ever trip unless one battery gets so bad that it absorbs all the power provided by the charger/within the limits of the equalizer... Now if you are so inattentive as to not catch it before it gets to that stage, perhaps you shouldn’t own things with power systems in them

 

[Third From Texas]

Personally, I would feed 2 smaller solar panels into 2 charge controllers, one for each battery....Then it'd be practically maintenance-free with no requirement for 110v... But, that's just mission ready stuff, not bringing back dead/depleted batteries... Plus, you'd be able to tap off of one of the batteries with small loads without having to worry about an imbalance..

But a battery equalizer is another way to do it, for sure.

I actually have that setup on my M1082 trailer. I have an interior flood and one set up outside, flag pole lights, rock lights under the bed, and my crane winch is 12v. I run two 12v deep cycles in paradelle. It has a little charger I can run to 120v and it's complemented by a solar panel. It was sort of my first dip into solar on a small scale (I've not install my PulseTech on the truck yet since I discovered the battery cutoff resolved my 12v vampiric drain).)

The little solar charger works as long as I don't pull the batteries down too far. I paid about $50 for the little kit /controller from Amazon last year.

amazon.com/gp/product/B07WYP4H6W/

 

[Third From Texas]

No it has a low volt cutoff..., but it would be used in conjunction with a charger/maintainer, so I doubt it would ever trip unless one battery gets so bad that it absorbs all the power provided by the charger/within the limits of the equalizer... Now if you are so inattentive as to not catch it before it gets to that stage, perhaps you shouldn’t own things with power systems in them

Yep, the low voltage cutoff is why my little solar rig on the trailer will typically shut the works down if I run my lights for about 18hrs. It reaches the point where it just goes "nope, plug the real charger in".

LOL