Thread: Battery tender?

The only gas I know that electronics give off is ozone (lone oxygen molecules). Anyone who's ever played with a slot car set knows the smell. Ozone is not explosive (no more than O2 anyway).

Car batteries may give off explosive gasses in the process of charging, which is probably what the warnings are about. With your dry cell battery, there should be no gasses there either.

thats the one we sell at advance and the one i have
been using it over a year now with no problems

That is what I surmised.

However, the owners manual would like you to believe you purchased a small nuclear weapon. They had warnings about their warnings.


That is indeed what the warnings are about. No smoking, open flames, making a spark of any sort...smiling, laughing, cutting a fart...OMG you're surely gonna die!!!!!

AHA! So my fancy dry cell battery is lightweight and it does not give off any gasses? Of course it does not hold a charge as long as a normal sized battery.

Now I know why both my mechanic and Hammerin' Hank both told me to buy a trickle charger. Doh.


Bueno!

Seems like Schumacher makes a good product. It got seriously killer reviews on price vs. performance.

Right now I am snaking a 3-prong 14 guage extension cable about ten feet over to my Classic, under the vehicle and up the charger. Which is perched on my air intake and happily glowing "yellow" (charging properly with no faults detected). With my hood closed properly.

Thank you gentlemen for the advice.

I just saw this, but apparently my answers are already moot.

I don't know about "overcharge protection" on mine, but I know it stops charging when it feels like it's done. If you leave it hooked up and the batter drops a bit of juice, it'll go back into charge mode and top it off, so to speak. I used it throughout last winter and it worked great; I'll be doing the same when cold weather hits again in a few months.

When flooded lead acid batteries are charged over their gassing voltage, usually around 2.37-2.42 Volts Per Cell, they start to gas. This gas is hydrogen as mentioned above and can build up in enclosed areas and ignite fairly easily. Your trickle charger is keeping your battery over the gassing voltage, probably around 2.5-2.6VPC. Since you are using a gel cell then you have no issue with gassing.

I work with industrial batteries in forklifts and what not and when they start to gas you know it. It can build up pretty fast and stink up an area pretty quick.

You know why those warnings are on those dont you? If someone can injure themselves with any type of consumer product, they will. Its just how it works.

I have 2 of the Harbor Freight ones, $5 each on sale and they work great.

A single car battery isn't going to release enough hydrogen to blow up unless there is something really weird going on. A whole bank of charging batteries in a small enclosed room might be an issue.

Think about it, the water in the electrolyte has to disassociate, the water in the battery would be all gone in no time if batteries were ticking bombs waiting to go off!

That is the same sort of overcharge protection.

Therefore, it will not overcharge (and presumably kill) your battery.


I was seriously wondering about those. I saw a coupon for the Harbor Freight ones in one of the latest car magazines, they were $3.00 with the coupon. The price was soooooo low that I thought they may be crapola. I'll certainly take your word for it that they work just fine.

Good information guys. Thanks again for the expertise.

My battery is properly charged back up, it is cool outside, and I cannot wait to take my Classic for a spin.

I had a tending charger fail , and had my battery explode this spring ....was not cool