HI Barry,

I use chargers from these two places.

http://www.powerwerx.com/batteries-chargers/

http://www.iotaengineering.com/power.htm

for very light applications I use the chargers from Battery Tender,  for 
most of the time I prefer the chargers/maintainer from IOTA, they are 
good enough that use can use them as a power supply.

One of my prefered setup lately is to have a APC UPS with external 
batteries with and IOTA hooked up to the batteries.  The A/C comes from 
the UPS and DC loads from the batteries through DC/DC converters when 
needed.  We use the IOTAs because the the chargers in the UPS can't 
handle larger (2 amp) loads.

The IOTA is a very good charger / maintainer

Regards,


Angel





On 11/01/2012 11:54 AM, Barry Lotz wrote:
> Blair
> Thank you for your input. It is very helpful. I'll do some more reading.
> Regards
> Barry
> www.seismicvault.com 
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Blair Lade 
> *To:* psnlist@..............
> *Sent:* Thu, November 1, 2012 4:00:04 AM
> *Subject:* RE: station battery maintaining
>
> Hi Barry,
>
> there are a lot of ‘smart’ battery chargers on the market these days. 
> They will look after your batteries pretty well.
>
> Might be worth asking your local security, fire panel installer, local 
> ham radio operator or solar power supplier for recommendations.
>
> You will need to make sure you get one that suites the battery type 
> (gell cell, lead acid, Nicad, NiMh, NiFe etc) and that is has enough 
> capacity to be able to charge the battery if you have a power outage 
> as well as maintain the battery under it’s 1-2amps continuous load
>
> I’d suggest that a 6 to 8 amp smart charger will do it nicely given 
> your estimation of current drain. .. (a bit bigger than a wall wart)
>
> In Oz (south of the equator and round the globe a bit), these are 
> around the $60 to $100, I wouldn’t cycle the battery charger, just 
> plug it in and leave it to do its thing.
>
> Best life out of batteries is usually obtained if you don’t exceed a 
> 20% discharge of the battery regularly, and with lead acid & gel 
> cells, unless they are specially made for deep cycle operations or 
> long life, 3 - 5 years tends to be about it.
>
> Having said that, well looked after, lives upto 10+ years are possible.
>
> In general terms, there is also no need to cycle a good battery to 
> keep it healthy (the exception being some wet NiCad’s which do need 
> this), just keeping that voltage at the right level with a smart 
> charger is enough.
>
> There is a lot of info about batteries on the solar power web sites, 
> and also avail from most battery manufacturers, it is quite well 
> researched and documented, so it is worth doing some reading.
>
> Lead acid type batteries (and probably most others) don’t like cold 
> feet, so don’t place the batteries directly on concrete floors, a 
> couple of bits of wood to keep them off the floor is all that is 
> required..
>
> If using ‘wet’ lead Acid, NiFe or NiCad batteries, consider getting a 
> plastic container that the battery can sit in (to contain any leakage 
> and spillage) and get that off the floor by a couple of cm (inch or 
> so) on some wood.
>
> Also, most storage type batteries don’t like large temperature changes 
> (don’t put them out side if it snows or you live in a desert..)
>
> If your battery is of the design that allows topping up with water 
> (‘wet’ types), you MUST use distilled or demineralised water, tap 
> water just isn’t good enough.
>
> Maintenance free car (auto) batteries around the 60 – 80 Ahr are great 
> for this sort of application (even the cheapies at discount shops 
> provided they haven’t been stored on the floor!!!) .
>
> That should give you around 2+ days of backup (in your estimated 
> loading) when the power goes off if they are fully charged and the 
> smart chargers will do that 4 you.
>
> Hope that gives you a few pointers
>
> Blair Lade
>
> South Australia
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*psnlist-request@.............. 
> [mailto:psnlist-request@............... *On Behalf Of *Barry Lotz
> *Sent:* Thursday, 1 November 2012 2:05 PM
> *To:* psnlist@..............
> *Subject:* station battery maintaining
>
> Hi All
> I have got my station components to work on 12 vts DC thru the use of 
> DC/DC converters.My thought was that the DC/DC converters are more 
> efficient than wall warts and a UPS and the battery would last longer 
> on a power outage. I would like to have the system  run on a battery 
> with something to maintain the battery health while under an approx 1 
> to 2  amp load. . The problem is what to use to keep the battery 
> charged but also healthy. I tried a 1.5 vt charger/maintainer which 
> worked for ~ 2 years. I am not sure whether it's the battery or the 
> maintainer which is malfunctioning. I can go into what I have done 
> recently . My question is would a possible scheme be to run a 6 amp 
> charger on a wall timer work to cycle the battery and prevent 
> sulfation? Maybe shutting off the charger for say 8 hrs each day then 
> put back on a 6 amp charge would work. Alternatively is there a 
> product  I could use to have battery maintain charge and capacity for 
> a reasonably long period of time.
>
> Regards
> Barry
> _www.seismicvault.com 
>
> _
>


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