I then stopped charger, dropped voltage using the headlamps as a ~15 amp load, restarted charger, and the darn thing would skyrocket past 14.8v then stop and goto float voltage unless I used the 2 amp setting which could not get past 13.4v at that stats of charge. 15 amps at 15.79v was well over this and very hard on the plates of the 100Ah starting battery. A battery should not be pushed past 14.8v with more amperage than 5 amps per 100Ah of capacity. An EQualization charge can go to 16.2v, but only after the battery has spent several houra in the 14.8v range and is otherwise 'fully' charged. When I checked on the charger after 1:40 is was making 15 amps at 15.79v, which is very abusive. I used my schumacher sc2500a on a neighbor's unintentionally depleted to dead, group 27 starting battery. I've a growing contempt for automatic smart chargers as they cannot seem to ever complete the job, dropping to float votlage very prematurely when the battery is still far from fully charged. But it is kind of neat to get a 30 amp adjustable and fully manual charger for such a low price. I realize the impracticality of this approach for the 99.95% of readers. I snipped the legs to the micro potentiometer and soldered wires to reach a 10 turn Bourns potentiometer rated for thousands of cycles. It will not adjust voltage automatically for actual battery temperature, but it is not difficult to adjust it with a jewewlers screwdriver. I recommend splicing a wattmeter on the DC output: The little voltage adjustment potentiometer is only rated for 25 or 50 adjustment cycles though. I'd have no issue putting it on a battery that cannot accept more than 30 amps. The linked product above has a fairly wide voltage range, from the mid 12 to mid 15v range. as well as overvoltage and overtemperature protections. After 17 minutes at 38 amps, the magic smoke released and I then bought a much higher quality Meanwell powersupply (rsp-500-15) that has constant current limiting on overload. When I got sick of twiddling voltage I sacrificed it to science and just set it to 14.8v and let it go on a depleted battery. I used one of these as a regular 30 amp bulk and absorption charger, and it would actually do 38 amps, but made this clicking noise over 36 amps, and I had to adjust voltage to keep it under 36 amps and keep twiddling voltage upward for the first half hour, as the well depleted battery recharged. The Tinkerer who does not mind a little hands on adjustment can utilize one of these adjustable voltage inexpensive power supplies: Obviously it would be great if such a maintainer come with a battery temperature sensor and perhaps a toggle from 13.2v for a flooded battery and 13.6v for a AGM. The key to ideal battery maintenance is the proper voltage for specific battery for its temperature.
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