In the book that came with it, it says... Supply Program 13.6V/ 10A Use as 12V power supply or use for float maintainance charging when 100% capacity of the battery is required. Supply program activates step 7 without time or voltage limitation. Step 7 is Float it says... Maintaining the battery at maximum level by providing a constant voltage charge. Can someone brainy please tell me I'm not knackering my new battery (already) please.
It's a temperature sensor - batteries behave differently in different temperatures, if you plug it in it's supposed to adjust it's charging to suit.
Leave it on the normal charge setting unless you pull some serious amps by plugging in your hair straighteners etc..
But then it goes to step 7 limit - 10 days. Whatever that means! And elsewhere - Warning! The spark protection of the battery charger is disabled during SUPPLY program. Whatever that is!
And here is a technical one - why does it say connect the + to the battery and the - to the vehicle chassis rather than the -ve terminal? To avoid poss sparks?
It has some tech. in there that if the supply terminals on the charger become detached from the battery (somehow)! it won't arc spark. You know, like it always does when connecting/disconnecting a battery! (edit. there's also no on/off switch on the charger you may have noticed so if it is connected "live" the electronic tech prevents arc sparks) It's a bit of a safety thing that is disabled/negated when a higher current is being produced by the charger. The 10 day bit means the charger stays on the float cycle for up to 10 days or until the battery has fully accepted all the amps it can. I guess they figure if the battery hasn't accepted all it's amps after 10 days then it needs a bit of help/de-sulphation etc so the charge cycle starts again. The 8th stage is what ctek call a pulse charge where it just slaps the odd amp in occasionally to compensate for natural discharge. This won't apply to us that use the LB regularly as there is aways some sort of drain on the system. Therefore, our chargers will just happily run up & down their charge cycles automatically depending on how much we draw off the battery. Seriously, don't worry too much about it, the charger is smarter than most of us & that's why I've got one . And the chassis connection bit is more safety advice re arc sparks from connecting a dead battery negative terminal to a live charging source. Once the quick connect leads are in place it's not an issue really anyway but I think the quick connect system is a fairly recent addition & maybe not all models come equipped...
They do offer quite a bit of conflicting advice IMO. Maybe the quick connect -ve should be bolted to the chassis rather than the battery as I've done it. I'll stick it on the charge setting.
Maybe, it's got me thinking as well. I'm not too worried tbh. I've done quite a bit of experimentation with earth & live connections on the leisure system on the bus as you may remember I've got bus bars. It makes no difference if the - are all through the bus bars but interestingly the solar is much more efficient if the + goes straight onto the battery terminal. I think that when I had the solar + going into the bus bar, the charge was being sucked by the demand on the leisure system & never reaching the battery. With that practical experience, all my leisure charging systems (solar, ctek & Durite) all go direct to the LB terminals now, both + & -. I use the dual terminals with the bolt down accessory posts that accept ring terminals. They're only a couple of quid each from the chandlery.
Not read the anti- arc thing and unsure how sensitive that is. There will be some level of arcing when a mechanical relay switches, when switches are operated and when accessories are plugged in or out. I need to think about this one.
I've only got an MXS 5.0 ... does all the above mean its not really man enough for charging my leisure battery etc
I don't know you know Dicky, if it's really that much of an issue. Conventionally our split charge relays are in the engine bay, not to mention the engine relays, distributor, plugs etc etc. There should be enough fresh air flow through the vents to dissipate any gas build up, which should be minimal anyway with the modern addition of calcium which helps to reduce fluid loss. A non-calcium battery such as the ones I favour has the potential to release larger quantities of gas during the bulk or hard/fast charging but again I reckon there is sufficient ventilation. That said, when I am hammering the battery whilst parked up I do tend to vent the engine lid with my patented wooden stick system just to get a bit of increased air-flow across the charger and around the batteries.
Not necessarily, it depends how much draw you put on the battery & for how long between full charging phases. We're (I'm) a bit anal on battery management simply because we rely on 12v DC for every day living on the boat
Me too, all charging stuff direct to the battery, terminals as you describe, I think - the screws on mine are really to clamp a fat cable.
