The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Battery overcharge symptoms?

Over the years I have read on the forum about overcharging the battery when you adjust the regulator incorrectly. Solar panel maintainers are becoming common and the cheaper one don’t provide any overcharging protection. The newer style batteries are sealed cells so out gassing and inspection ports are gone, as far as I know. I do know that batteries are somewhat self regulating in the sense that their internal resistance goes up as the % of of full charge goes up.
So the question is.....what are the symptoms of an ‘overcharged’ battery? Another is....can a trickle charger (1/2 amp or less) overcharge a battery?
Thanks.

Depending on the battery tender/trickle charger, the good ones won't overcharge, the cheap ones will. I had two HF cheapo trickle -charge units that went in the trash - no overcharge protection and yes, they overcharged (evidenced by fluid use/dry out). HF seems to have better units now than 10 years ago, so can't speak to those.

I currently run a couple Schumacher SEM1562A units that are fully automatic maintainers, and will auto select for 6V or 12V, microprocessor controlled. Tractor Supply routinely discounts to about $25, although that promotional doesn't seem to be in effect at the moment. Battery Tender is the Cadillac of equivalent maintainers, and can be found for around $30.

Hope this helps!

Anything that allows the terminal voltage to go above 15 will overcharge- - - -the low-current "maintainers" just take a little longer to fry a battery than a 60 amp boost charger. I have zero experience with the truly sealed batteries like the Optima series, so I'll let someone else pontificate on those things. Whenever possible, I like to use batteries I can actually test- - - -ones with vents and fill caps so I can stick a hydrometer in there and check the acid concentration. If that's not possible, monitoring the open circuit terminal voltage is about the only way I know to check a battery's state of charge. To actually determine if it will get the job done, do a load test. In my somewhat biased opinion, a battery's worst enemy is lack of exercise. If your hangar queen does nothing but decorate the garage for weeks or months at a time, at least go out there a couple of times a month, turn the headlights on for a couple of hours, turn then off, and connect a slow charger with about a 5-amp maximum charge rate to it. Leave the charger connected overnight. The discharge/recharge cycle will keep the battery functional so it doesn't develop crystals of lead sulfate that are almost impossible to dissolve. Normal lead/acid battery discharge turns both positive and negative plates into lead sulfate as they react with sulfuric acid to produce electric current, but it's a spongy material that redissolves easily as the battery is recharged. If a battery sits in as partially discharged state for some time, the sulfate form a hard crystal which really resists the reconversion back to lead (negative plate) and lead dioxide (positive plate). That reversible chemical reaction can go on virtually forever, as long as it's done frequently.
Jerry