Increasingly Difficult To Find Manual 6V Battery Chargers

[Sniper]

I work in the commercial and industrial uninterruptible power supply industry.  We use VRLA batteries for most of our setups.  VRLA means Valve Regulated Lead Acid (sealed batteries essentially).  Batteries heat up when you charge them, nature of the beast.  However, there is a limit to how hot you want them to get and we use temp sensors to monitor that, as an option though. 

 

When I test the batteries, my tester costs about $5k, and it shows an initial "fully charged" voltage under 13V I know that battery will fail the test and we replace it.  If yours reads like that after being on the charger overnight, it's dead.  BTW, a maintainer isn't really designed to charge a fully discharged battery, it's just to keep it charged, which is why it is referred to as a maintainer, it maintains the charge level, such as in a car being stored for the winter.

 

But as JB said, your battery is dead is it won't hold a charge.

[Eneto-55]

Thanks JB & Sniper.  That's 'kinda what I thought.  When this battery failed in the CRV, it gave no warning, it just one morning wouldn't even try. Maybe the CRV is 'smart' enough that it analyzed the battery and decided it didn't want anything more to do with it. I was rather sore with the CRV, that it gave no indication that the battery was about to fail. Not at all like every other vehicle I've had. Fortunately it was in the garage here at home when it failed, and the battery is not in the sort of crazy place where it is in the 2009 Dodge Journey that was our previous family car.

 

I've often kept batteries going that are probably in the same state of demise, sometimes for a year or more. Charge it often (on an old style battery charger), especially during the winter (always at low amperage).  I think I actually got 2 more years out of the battery in my 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan doing that.  This battery, I charged it up & put it in the camper before our summer camping trip. It did fine, and I'm pretty certain it could have engaged the electric brakes in the event of a disconnect.  (I didn't test it, which I guess I could have easily done, by just yanking the disconnect cable out of the switch.)

 

Anyway, this Battery Tender also has the 6V setting, although after years of saying I would *never* switch to 12V on my 46, I'm rethinking that. AM radio is basically dead except for talk shows and maybe a local ball game. But switching to 12V would let me use an alternator, and maybe install the CD/AM/FM out of the 93 Chrysler T&C we had.  That system had really decent sound.  Decisions, decisions....

 

Thanks again!

 

EDIT 08-16-2024 AM:

One more comment about the Honda CRV - these modern vehicles have a constant "parasitic draw".  Sometimes, long after it has been driven, and with the dongles no where close to the vehicle, I come through the garage and it's sitting there humming to itself.  (It's someplace in the rear area, but I haven't been able to figure out what it is. Maybe the fuel pump pressurizing the fuel lines?)

Edited August 16 by Eneto-55
additional comment

[Veemoney]

6-volt pos or neg ground alternators are reasonably priced and seem to keep my battery well maintained as opposed to the generator in my truck. I used a cheap 6 to 12-volt upconverter to power a radio for awhile.