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Accumate
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 9:41 pm
by jimbo
How long can I keep an Accumate plugged in and attached to the battery terminals for? Is there an upper limit?
Cheers
James
Sent from my TITAN X310e using Board Express
Re: Accumate
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 11:06 pm
by renmure
I confess to having had my Caterham battery connected for about 9 months
No issues
Re: Accumate
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 11:13 pm
by Mikie711
Had mine on the Evora for 3-4months now and all OK as far as I can tell. It's a conditioner so only feeds a maintenance charge not on full charge. My alarm doesn't even notice it and the alarm is the reason I use it.
RE: Accumate
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:14 am
by jimbo
Ok cool, thanks guys
Just bought one cause I couldn't bear the thought of having to swop out another battery
Sent from my TITAN X310e using Board Express
Re: Accumate
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:34 am
by Dominic
Mikie711 wrote:Had mine on the Evora for 3-4months now and all OK as far as I can tell. It's a conditioner so only feeds a maintenance charge not on full charge. My alarm doesn't even notice it and the alarm is the reason I use it.
Mine is on all the time when the car is in the garage (which is quite a lot in this weather). No probs. As others say, it stops charging when the battery is full.
Re: Accumate
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 1:38 pm
by flyingscot68
I use a similiar type charger on my bikes called an Optimate.
You can leave them on the battery for years nevermind months
Re: Accumate
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:13 pm
by Ferg
I take mine off for a week now and again. A friends garage burnt down using a trickle charger so a little paranoia is aloud. lol
Re: Accumate
Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:25 pm
by j2 lot
Ferg wrote:a little paranoia is aloud. lol
allowed
Re: Accumate
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:53 am
by Dominic
Ferg wrote:I take mine off for a week now and again. A friends garage burnt down using a trickle charger so a little paranoia is aloud. lol
These are not trickle charges. Trickle chargers (AFAIK) slowly gently charge, but keep doing so when the battery is full. The Acumate stops charging when the battery is full.
...(now hopes my garage (& house) don't burn down)
Re: Accumate
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:16 am
by robin
All chargers have voltage and current limits, even ones where that wasn't an explicit design goal. The problem comes when the design fails to enforce a reasonable voltage limit and so tries to pump current into your battery when it is full. To be honest, it is so trivial to make a safe lead acid battery charger that will keep it at somewhere around 50% charge (which is more than enough to restart the car) that I am amazed at the problems these chargers create ... but they do (perhaps because they try to keep the battery at 100% charge ... why?!?).
Cheers,
Robin