Patrol 4x4 - Nissan Patrol Forum banner

Maximum amp charge rate calcium?

7K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  nullack 
#1 ·
Gday

Do calcium 12v deep cycle batteries have a maximum charge rate for the amps they can take?

I have an ac delco HCM27SMF which is a 97 AH calcium deep cycle marine battery

Couldnt seem to find a spec from the oem
 
#2 ·
I have the latest Projecta 25A charger that will charge from 2A to 25A and the calcium battery setting charges at something like 16V vs the 14V or so for other types. BTW, I have two AC Delco 110A calcium marine batteries in my camper.

Cheers

Ray
 
#3 ·
off memory they only dont like much more than 14.5v as with lead acid. but as for amps. usually speaking a battery will only take in what it needs and its hard to fast charge a battery with amps only.
hence why 120amp alts or bigger dont kill batteries as they only take what they need.
 
#4 ·
Benos the calcium ones require higher voltage than lead antimony ones. My redarc pushes 15.3 v in calcium mode and like what Ray said some do up to 16v for calcium.

Ray, mate thats interesting but its not the answer to my question :) I want to know if the calcium batteries and the ac delco ones in particular have a max amp charge rate or not.

Im hearing conflicting things like its c/8 or c/1 for calcium. In my case C is 97 ah's so you can see thats a massive difference between c/8 and c/1

My redarc can puch out 40A and Im a little worried about cooking it given the conflicting info Ive found
 
#5 ·
I really don't know the answer to that. I just set my Projecta to calcium and let it do what it does. I don't think it's the amps that matter so much as the voltage being input at those amps. More amps usually means a quicker charge. Alternators can punch out 110+A, but the voltage is restricted to around 13.8V.

Cheers

Ray
 
#6 ·
What are you capable of charging at?

Unless you own a 50 - 80 amp charger and only charging one battery you won't have a problem.
Even then a calcium battery will only have trouble accepting that sort of supply over an extended period, IE when in is completely flat below safety level ( like 6-7v )


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#7 ·
As a safety thing it's generally recomended to charge at 10% of the batteries capacity to stop it over heating and going into thermal runaway.
So realisticly a 97ah battery should be charged at 10amp.
I don't follow that rule myself to often as like ray said, the battery is only going to accept what it needs, and it's more a rule of thumb regarding the older brute force chargers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#8 ·
Suggy I've read elsewhere it's C/10 like you say, others say it's C/1 for calcium.

I'm generally not sure about this situation guys. If the battery has an internal resistance such that it wont ever accept anything it doesnt need, then why do OEMs make specs against that? And I see lots of OEMs putting amp limits on their batteries and those that dont like Optima make a big deal of how special their batteries are cos of the lack of amp limit for charging. I'm going to ring AC Delco Monday.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top