Is my charger bad???

[5150abf]

I just got a new Shumacher battery charger, I charged all the boat batteries with it and noticed on trickle charge it was going at 16 volts, that seems pretty high for a trickle and the battery was bubbling pretty good.

When I switched to quick charge it went down to 14 something, I have a brand new Crown battery and don't want to smoke it so does that seem high to anyone else?

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Is my charger bad???

I would say yes it is. Its been some time since I have looked at charger voltages but if I remember right the voltage should drop as it finishes a charge. and it sounds like the regulator in the charger is bad. I went through battery charger school for Hobart 30 years ago. It should look something like this.

 

[5150abf]

Re: Is my charger bad???

I thought so, I checked the voltage after it had been on for a hour or so so I don't know if it steps down or not, I got it at Wal mart a couple months ago and just recently replaced my multi meter so I checked.

It is one of the new ones with no gauge on it and it has 3 modes, storage, slow and fast, the high voltage was on the slow mode.

I will see if they will take it back and I hope I didn't smoke my batteries.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Is my charger bad???

I doubt you have battery's are pretty tuff. A good bit of bubbling during the mid charge is normal and as long as the plates are covered it doesn't hurt a thing. In fact the bubbling is good for them it get the acid moving around and mixes it and cleans the plates. Its only when the water gets low and the plates get exposed that damage happens.

I have been using the Schumacherer chargers for like 30 years its rare to get a bad one. lolol the one I had to replace last year had been in use since 1985. This time around I am giving one they make called a ship and shore 10 amp with a automatic cycle to maintain. And I know I will hear about this but a battery will only draw what it will draw and once its charged it levels off and stops. The maintainer setting monitor voltage while hooked up if it voltage drops off a bit it kicks the charger back on.

I would all most bet the charger is fine and the slow/fast labling is mis printed in the wrong spots and it slipped by quality control. But I sure wouldnt risk it.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Is my charger bad???

You don't want battery bubbling during normal charging. That's a sign of over charging.

As batteries age, you will find that one cell will start bubbling before another one because that particular cell has reached its peak voltage. Any excess energy given to a fully charged cell is converting the hydrogen in the battery electrolyte to hydrogen gas. As batteries age, the voltage that a cell becomes fully charged at decreases.

Some battery chargers have desulfication routines that you can run where you may get some bubbling. This is because they are pulsing high voltages to the battery.

 

[Star]

Re: Is my charger bad???

I agree Schumacher battey chargers that I owned have been pretty bulit proof. It seems that they like to use 16v on the newer ones. They have gotten cute with useless led readouts and eliminated the good old amp meter. I have been on the net for te last ten days researching this very thing. Please enter the model number on amazon.com they will give you many people with the same experience that you had, none of the models escaped strange operating problems including the Ship to Shore models. Sometimes the charger would not charge because it was too low, even relitivity new batteries. I have desided to get parts for my deep cycle ship to shore, because it was very relable and did a very good in auto mode. The good news is that they do support their stuff for 5 years. Hey Silvertip what kind do you like?

 

[dwparker99]

Re: Is my charger bad???

From my experience with Schumacher chargers, it is working as designed. I've had two Shumacher Ship-N-Shore chargers and at the end of the normal charge cycle, each would raise the voltage to 16+ volts for 30-45 minutes. I didn't like the fact that I had no control over this equalization mode so I went to a NOCO charger. If forced to charge the batteries during a summer day when battery compartment temps can be 100+ degrees, I don't want the charge voltage to ever reach 16+ volts.