House battey question

[TraceyAZ]

Originally Posted by TexGX

daveb,

I attached the manual for the batteries. It does recommend conditioning(equalizing) if the battery shows loss in capacity. It is section 5.5. What would be the negatives? My charger has this function and recommends every year.

http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/manual.pdf

TexGX

This is for the most part exactly what I did with my battery. According to the manual and what Im seeing for data I would have to say I'm in the ballpark with the results. Thanks for posting that info TexGX. I will continue to keep an eye on this and see how it holds up. So far the battery is holding a good charge and staying at around 12.6-12.7 with the same load it had before when it would drop quickly to 12.3-12.4 and continue to drop if I didn't do something about it.
TraceyAZ

[daveb]

I actually purchased a battery conditioner/maintenance charger BatteryMINDer 12248. Not sure if it's doing what it's supposed to do or not. Time will tell but as long as my batteries hold their voltage I have no need to use it on them.
My batteries are 4 years old and hold at 12.8 w/o a load for over a week. The original 4-D battery I had from 2005 can sit (where it's lived on the garage floor since about 2007) for a month and never drop below 12.8v... I just give it a 24 hr maintenance jolt once every couple of months. I did start using the conditioner on it a few months back and it didn't hurt it.

[daveb]

OK from Lifeline:
Equalize a Lifeline AGM battery to their specs when your battery has been damaged due to poor maintenance and it shows damage. Damage would be diminished capacity to supply the battery AH rating or if the battery cannot hold a 12.8 resting voltage with no load for at least 4hrs +. The older a Lifeline battery gets the more useless equalizing becomes. They did warn that many other battery makes can be damaged by equalizing and to always check with the manufacture.

The best thing the tech told me was that it's not necessary to equalize unless absolutely needed but if done correctly (correct temp, time, and voltage) it will not damage the battery even if it doesn't need it. The problem is there are different equalizing voltages from charger to charger so it's important to make sure the voltage set point is correct to be effective. Having a load applied during a equalizing charge might affect the voltage so the load should be shut down (don't leave the fridge...etc on). Also in the case of having a separator on your vehicle, it is important to only equalize the Lifeline batteries and not the starting batteries at the same time... open the separator during the conditioning.

Hope this helps clears things up.

[TexGX]

Thanks for taking the time to clear that up.

TexGX