WOODS ELECTRICS

LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF BATTERY CHARGING

The writings black, anyway.

LEAD-ACID BATTERY CHARGING

HOW DOES CHARGING WORK? Current forced into the battery causes a chemical reaction, converting lead sulphate to lead on the negative plates and lead dioxide on the positive plates. BATTERY OVERCHARGING When most of the lead sulphate has been converted, the battery is fully charged. The charging current then begins to electrolyse the batterys water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. In Sealed Lead-Acid (SLA) batteries, the gasses produced by moderate charge rates can be re-absorbed internally. In unsealed batteries, and at high charge rates, dehydration (drying out) can occur.

SPARKING DANGERS
Batteries may produce hydrogen and oxygen gas during charging (see Battery Overcharging). Also, batteries in engine bays and under bonnets may be near fuel vapours. The batteries may be knee-deep in explosive gas mixtures. Only one small spark is needed. Boom, flying shards & acid spray. Chargers are designed to be connected and disconnected in a specific sequence to avoid sparking: Connect battery clips with charger power OFF. Apply charger power, and charge the batteries. Turn the charger power OFF Disconnect batteries. See, no sparks! Nice and safe!

BATTERY CAPACITY
Battery capacity is measured in AMP-HOURS (AH). For example, a 70AH battery will deliver one amp for seventy hours, or seventy amps for an hour, or 35 amps for 2 hours. in theory. In practice, a batterys exact amp-hour capacity will depend on the current drain, temperature and battery age. Battery manufacturers make this information freely available, if you ask them. A batterys COLD CRANKING AMPS (CCA) is a measure of its ability to deliver brief bursts of current to starter motors, and is not related to the batterys overall storage capacity.

BOOST AND FLOAT CHARGING

FLOAT CHARGING Forces current into the battery until it reaches 13.7V (27.4V), then holds the battery at this voltage. Holding the battery at this voltage gives an excellent compromise between maintaining a fully-charged battery condition, versus unnecessary gas production. BOOST CHARGING Forces current into the battery until it reaches 14.4V (28.8V), then holds the battery at this voltage until the current demanded by the battery falls to a low level (typically 10% to 50% of charger capacity). Generally, the charger then reverts to FLOAT charging for long-term maintainance. Boost charging gives the fastest charging time for a given charger capacity. Deep-cycle batteries require boost charging for best fully-charged battery condition. SLAs will accept boost charging, but do not require it.

BATTERY TYPES
WET LEAD-ACID BATTERIES These are general-purpose batteries, and will accept high charge and discharge rates. They need maintainance (ie. check the electrolyte level regularly, and specific gravity when you think of it). SEALED LEAD-ACID (SLA) BATTERIES These require less maintainance than wet types, but they prefer longer charging times and dont like heavy loads (due to their higher internal electrical resistance). DEEP-CYCLE LEAD-ACID BATTERIES These are better suited to survive repeated deep depletion and recharging than wet or SLA types, but need boost charging. They need a similar degree of maintainance to wet types. CALCIUM BATTERIES These batteries are very good at cranking engine-starter motors. They will deliver high peak currents (Cold cranking amps) due to their low impedance. They require very specific charging routines. HAWKER GENESIS BATTERIES: These have good cold-cranking ability due to their low impedance, despite being a form of SLA battery. They are also good in traction applications. They require very specific charging routines, with relatively high charging currents.

DEFINING OUTPUT CURRENT

AMPS AINT AMPS! The current delivered by most chargers to the battery is NOT nice, pure DC. The current waveform usually looks like a series of pulses (100 per second). The current can be measured as RMS amps or Average amps. The chemical reactions in the battery during charging respond to Average amps, so youd think that all manufacturers would quote their chargers performance in average amps. Unfortunately, the RMS amps always measure higher than the average amps so this is the figure which some manufacturers quote. Just to add to the confusion, everyone in the audio profession has been taught (rightly) that RMS measurements are the only valid type. Look at the specifications carefully. If the chargers RMS current is specified, its average current will only be about 60% of this figure. HEAVY MATHS IN THIS BIT The waveform below is for a typical 10 amp (average) charging current.
Xa: 60.00m Xb: 0.000 Yc: 10.07 Yd: 15.27 b 30 a-b: 60.00m freq: 16.67 c-d:-5.200 a

24

18

12 c

-6

10m

20m

30m Ref=Ground X=10m/Div Y=current

40m

50m

60m

Although the AVERAGE is only 10 amps, the RMS current is 15.3 amps and the peaks reach nearly 30 amps.

The current waveform is equivalent to 10 amps of pure DC, with 11.5 amps of AC (not sinusoidal) superimposed on top. Despite the large amount of AC, the charging current never actually reverses; it simply pulses between zero and thirty amps. The total RMS current (15.3A) consists the root-mean-square sum of 10 amps DC, with 11.5 amps of superimposed AC:

15.3A(rms) = (102 + 11.52)

You can verify this at any time with a charger, a battery and an AC/DC RMS amp-clamp meter. THE MATHS IS FINISHED BUT The average current gives a measure of how much current is charging the battery. The RMS current merely gives an indication of how much heat is generated in the batteries internal electrical resistance by the leftover AC current. The amount of heating in the battery is proportional to its internal electrical resistance, and proportional to the SQUARE of the RMS current. Since the RMS current from an unfiltered charger is around 53% higher than from a filtered charger, its heating effect will be around 2.3 times higher.

FILTERED CHARGERS: WHY BOTHER?

Filtered chargers give near-pure DC output. There is no additional battery heating caused by AC ripple from the charger. The AC current ripple is wasted as heat. This extra heat generation is relatively small in wet batteries, since these generally have fairly low internal electrical resistance, and relatively large surface area. However, internal heating becomes a problem for SLAs due to their compact size and higher internal resistance. SLA batteries should be charged with filtered chargers to avoid overheating and premature battery failure. Filtered chargers cost more (and weigh more) than normal ones due to the extra components required for filtering, but are quite necessary when charging SLAs quickly. Filtered chargers should also be used in applications where the DC power quality must be of the highest purity for example, battery systems supplying high quality audio installations.

BATTERY BOILING
IS THE BATTERY REALLY BOILING? There are two forms of activity which can be described as boiling in a battery ELECTROLYSIS and THERMAL BOILING. ELECTROLYSIS, or electrolytic bubbling, is caused by overcharging, leading to bubbling of hydrogen and oxygen. THERMAL BOILING is caused by allowing battery temperatures to become high enough to boil the acid mixture.

Electrolytic bubbling is accompanied by a mild acid smell. The battery may be warm, but not too hot to touch. A brief period of electrolytic bubbling in wet-cell batteries is not harmful, and signifies that the battery is fully charged. The bubbling may even help in avoiding stratification, by mixing denser and lighter layers of electrolyte which may form in stationary batteries. Thermal boiling is accompanied by an extremely strong acid smell. Some surfaces of the battery will be too hot to touch. The battery case may distort, or even melt, due to high temperatures. WHAT CAUSES OVERCHARGING AND ELECTROLYTIC BUBBLING? Gross overcharging, and prolonged bubbling, can occur for a number of reasons all of them avoidable! Basic chargers ($29.95 from Woolworths): These generally have a low charge rate (2.5A); there are few ill effects if overcharging (and resulting mild outgassing) continues for only a few hours. Small batteries (eg motorcycle batteries) may be at risk of dehydration. Float or Constant Voltage chargers (eg Woods Neptune chargers): It is difficult to force these chargers to overcharge. They will overcharge batteries if: a cell within the battery is shorted (Working cells must share the charger voltage) the charger voltage is set too high (more than 13.8V for a 12V battery) Manual chargers (eg Woods Dialomatic chargers): The charge rate and battery condition are in the users hands. Dont leave batteries unattended. Disconnect the charger soon after bubbling is noticed.. Smart or Automatic chargers (eg Woods Automatic types): Boost charge is terminated when the current taken by the battery tapers to a low value. Overcharge can occur if the charger stays in Boost mode, because the current has not tapered off. This can be caused by: A shorted cell in the battery (the charger keeps force-feeding the battery to bring its voltage up to the Boost level) A load on the battery during charging (even when the battery accepts low currents, the charger supplies and senses the loads current) The charger is too small for the batteries (eg: a 15 amp charger for 200AH batteries; the charge current takes too long to taper to a low value, so the charger stays in Boost too long) The batteries are too large for the charger (See above!)

WHAT CAUSES THERMAL BOILING? Thermal boiling occurs when the charger current to the battery heats the batterys internal resistances above boiling point. This may be due to high internal battery resistance, or to excessive charging currents. Battery heating is proportional to its internal resistance. If its resistance triples, so does the heating effect. Battery heating is proportional to the SQUARE of the charging current. If the charging current triples, the heating effect increases NINE TIMES. NOTE: The heating effect from unfiltered charger current is about 2.3 times more than for filtered charger current. Always use filtered chargers for SLA batteries! Thermal boiling may occur because : Bad battery condition (high internal battery resistance in one cell or several!) The charger is too large for the battery (eg: a 60 amp charger on a 40AH battery) Batteries need filtered charger to reduce superimposed AC (eg gell-cells or SLAs).

CHOOSING A WOODS ELECTRIC CHARGER

CHARGER TYPE: You want If you are dealing with wet batteries with a variety of voltages and capacities, or want manual charge control, and youre willing to attend the batteries during charging: If youre charging wet batteries, and want to walk away and leave the charger on auto-pilot: If youre charging Deep-Cycle batteries: If youre charging Calcium batteries: We make WOODS DIALOMATIC

WOODS AUTOMATIC WOODS AUTOMATIC WOODS AUTOMATIC with Calcium software WOODS FILTERED AUTOMATIC WOODS NEPTUNE WOODS NEPTUNE

If youre charging SLAs or gel-cells:

If you have two or three battery systems, and the budget for only one charger (ATTENTION ALL BOAT OWNERS!) If youre charging wet batteries which may have heavy loading during charge:

QUICK PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: DIALOMATIC chargers are unfiltered. They have manual control of charge current. They will charge any battery voltage, from single cells up to the chargers nameplate. A good workshop charger. NEPTUNE chargers are a Float or Constant Voltage charger (unfiltered) with three diode-isolated and individually regulated outputs. Choose this one for boats with multiple battery banks. AUTOMATIC chargers are Boost-Float chargers (unfiltered). They pamper your batteries. A must for deep-cycle batteries. Turn them on, walk away and leave them to it. FILTERED AUTOMATIC chargers: Just like the vanilla Automatics, but the filtered output has very low AC ripple. Choose these for gel-cells and Sealed Lead-Acid batteries, and for top-quality audio installations. CHARGER CAPACITY: This is EASY! No rocket science is required 1/ Figure out your batterys amp-hour capacity. Note: Batteries in parallel capacity adds! Eg: Two 12V/200AH in parallel = 12V / 400AH Batteries in series capacity unchanged! Eg: Two 12V/200AH in series = 24V / 200AH 2/ How many hours will you allow for recharging? Note: We suggest more than 2 hours, and less than 10 hours. 3/ Charger capacity equals battery amp-hours divided by recharge time: And remember to add the GST! (the charger must return about 10% extra to the battery) eg: for 200AH to recharge in 6 hours, you need: 33 amps (plus 3 amps GST) 36 amps. A 30amp or 60 amp AUTOMATIC charger would be a good choice so far 4/ Add any load during charging: eg: 200AH battery, 6-hour recharge PLUS 15 amps of fridge consumption: Total

36 amps 15 amps 51 amps

5/ Choose the nearest WOODS charger! Since you need 51 amps, a 60 amp AUTOMATIC charger would be a good choice. Recharge time would be less than five hours. A 30 amp NEPTUNE might suffice, but recharge time would exceed 13 hours.

FINALLY: We hope that you find battery charging to be an incredibly BORING activity. We hope you never experience sparks, explosions, smoke, boiling, acid smells and sprays, or dud batteries. Charge on, regardless!