I teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about charging a car battery, marine battery, or other deep-cycle battery for your battery bank. Charging a lead acid battery is easy if you pay attention to this podcast.  I teach you all about smart-chargers, and how they function.

Housekeeping:

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Helicopters last night

Trying a new time for the podcast

News Segment by J.Bradbury of PreparePDX.com:

Power Grid

http://codegreenprep.com/2012/07/why-our-electricity-grid-is-so-vulnerable/

Bushcraft Book By Dave

Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival

Solar Storm

http://spaceweather.com/

Discussion: The Best Battery Chargers to use

I was trying to decide how I would present this information to all of you, and I realized that Steven Harris of Solar1234.com and of Battery1234.com did a terrific job on the audio presented on his websites, so I decided to use his information (and hopefully he doesn’t mind) on most of this topic, with some more detail added by me to unnecessarily expound on the wonderful information that he has provided.  If you decide to purchase ANYTHING that I have discussed today, please go to Steven’s websites and purchase from him through HIS affiliate links, to thank him for all of his hard work.

Basic types of chargers

Dumb Battery Chargers or Manual Battery Chargers

Manual Chargers

trickle charger

Smart Automatic Battery Chargers

Get a 3 stage smart charger!

actually 4 stages…

Best Charger Brand for these would be Shumacher

30A smart charger, and 100A battery

Charge in 3.5 hrs right?

80% in 4 hrs

100% in 12 hrs

All of the Stages of a Smart Charger Explained

Stage 1: Assess and Bulk Charge

Determine DOD

Dump 30A till about 80%

4 Hrs

Stage 2: Absorption Charge

“Topping Charge”

Start at 30A at 80%

slowly reduce down to 5A as charge goes up

at 5A at 95% charge

about 5Hrs

Stage 3: Float Charge

“Trickle Charge”

1-2A

Last 2-5% of battery

Until 100% Charge

about 2-3 Hrs

Typical “trickle” chargers

Can’t charge a dead battery (wall)

Dumb

will boil water out of a battery