65GS.com - Buick Gran Sport Enthusiasts!
Electrical => Electrical => Topic started by: elagache on April 22, 2017, 10:53:25 AM
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Dear mid-60s Buick battery tenders,
In California you normally can get your classic out at least once in a while during the winter, so a trickle charger isn't really needed. However with the engine for my trusty wagon headed to TA-Performance, I need to keep the battery in good shape until the engine gets back. I have a general purpose battery charger from Black and Decker, but that company doesn't seem to have much of a reputation for battery chargers. Looking at the choices on Amazon, the Battery Tender Jr. is the #1 best seller in trickle chargers:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CITK8S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CITK8S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)
Since I have a general purpose charger, I really need a dedicated trickle charger. So this looks like it would fit the bill. So what do you guys use for trickle chargers? Is this a safe choice or should I consider something else?
A curious mind would like to now! :read2:
Cheers, Edouard
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That's the one I use Edouard.
Dan
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I have one of those too only the next bigger model. Also got a nice one for that price at Advance Auto Parts locally that I'm very happy with. (and my friend rang it up)
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Just buy a solar battery tender and save those electric bills from piling. I use one on my boat and it works excellent if you get sunny days half the time.
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Dear Dan, Jim, Dan, and mid-60s Buick electricians,
That's the one I use Edouard.
Well that's a good recommendation! Jim, I think I stick to the simpler model since my all purpose charger is for the moment working fine. This is purely to keep the battery charged.
Just buy a solar battery tender and save those electric bills from piling. I use one on my boat and it works excellent if you get sunny days half the time.
:icon_biggrin: . . . . Hmmm, that sounds like a good idea except for one inconvenient truth. The garage is at the bottom of a two story house! Running that cable from the solar panel to the garage could be a long-winded proposition! :icon_scratch:
Cheers, Edouard :occasion14:
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Dear mid-60s Buick electricians,
I ordered a Battery Tender Jr. from Amazon and it arrived today. I had my wagon's battery on my general purpose charger, but it doesn't have the float mode. It just monitors the voltage until it drops below a certain level and tops it up once more. I didn't realize that Battery Tender Jr. has such a long connection cord. I was able to plug it directly into a wall outlet and still run the cable to battery. That's really convenient. You can easily see the status LED even if the battery is for the moment on the floor of the garage.
When I connected the battery, it started in its charging mode and it took less than 15 minutes to determine that the battery was at 80%. In another 10-15 minutes the status light was a solid green and the battery is now protected for the duration. If you have a car that you drive infrequently, this model may be indeed too weak to bring the battery up from the discharging needed to get the car started. On the other hand, if you have the battery mostly charged, the Battery Tender Jr. will definitely take good care of your battery while being kind to your wallet!
Cheers, Edouard
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I have two Battery Tender Jr. One for the Buick, and one for my travel trailer batteries. Have had both of them for years, and I'm very happy with them. Every once in a while they will show up at Costco. Otherwise, Amazon.
Keith
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Dear Keith and thrifty owners of mid-60s Buicks,
I have two Battery Tender Jr. . . . . Every once in a while they will show up at Costco. Otherwise, Amazon.
I got mine from Amazon. I didn't think to check Costco. I'll try to cruise the auto parts section more often. Thanks for the tip!
Cheers, Edouard
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It's summer, so hopefully we are all driving our cars to keep the battery charged!
But today I got this e-mail from my insurance company about preventing fires caused by battery maintainers. Worth reading to prevent a tragedy:
https://condonskelly.com/blog/avoiding-fires-while-your-collector-car-is-in-storage/
Here's the body of the article:
>>>Many of us use battery maintainers when we don’t drive our collector cars for lengthy periods of time, but few of us knew that the battery maintainers could be a potential problem unless we take a few prevention steps. We recently visited with a large and well-respected auto restoration shop which deals with a lot of very expensive vehicles. The owner of the shop told us that he had three clients over the past year who had fires, much like the fire that John had with his 1970 Charger, all due to the battery maintainers. Those clients of the shop sustained significant damage to their vehicles and homes. One of the clients had some extensive investigation done to determine the exact cause of the fire, and it was found that the battery maintainer had caught on fire because of a power surge. Apparently, power surges could cause a battery maintainer to catch on fire. The shop has over a hundred battery maintainers, and they unplug each of them every night, and plug them back in every morning, under the fear that a fire could occur overnight when nobody is at the shop. We’ve heard these things before from others, so it’s time we found a method of prevention.
Since the issue of a power surge seems to be a possible trigger for fires with battery maintainers, we recommend that everyone using a battery maintainer consider having it plugged into a surge protector, which are readily available as small single units or multi-unit power strips. We know that different surge protectors are not all equivalent, and some can handle larger power surges. If a power surge is powerful enough it might cause the surge protector to fail, and the power surge would then get to the battery maintainer, potentially causing a fire. So, although surge protectors are inexpensive, you should consider getting one that has high power protection ratings. Often the ratings are in joules. A rating of 600 joules is good, but a rating of 1,000 joules (or higher) is better.
The next thing to consider using is a fire-resistant bag/box for the battery maintainer to sit in when it’s in use. Those items are flexible fire-resistant fold-up boxes that are available in different sizes, so you can find them to fit whatever size battery maintainers that you’re using. The fire-resistant boxes are sometimes described as “fire proof”, but almost nothing is actually fire proof, so we’ll refer them as “fire resistant”. The ones we’re describing are intended for use when charging or transporting LIPO batteries (used in certain remote-control toys) which are known to sometimes catch fire, so these boxes should be useful for containing any fire that originates at the battery maintainer. If you use the search words “LIPO Safe” in one of the large global online retailers, such as the one that’s named after a big river in South America, you’ll find lots of the fire-resistant boxes in different sizes, for fairly inexpensive prices. We bought several sizes, and the average price was around $5 each. Try to avoid the boxes that have only one layer of fire resistant material. Instead, you want to buy the ones that have a double layer of fire resistant material, because those will better contain a fire, and are less likely to have a burn-through. The battery maintainer should be completely inside the fire-resistant box, and the cords can go out any of the sides. Most of the fire-resistant boxes have Velcro closures, but the boxes are not air tight, so there is ventilation, but generally not enough for a fire to burn as it might without this extra protection.
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Another tip is to put the battery charger on a timer so it only runs a few hours a day.
We should revisit this topic in the winter as a reminder to keep safe!
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Walt,
Thank you for this important information. Something I had not considered with the battery maintainer I have that is in constant use.
Loren
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What I don't get is why should we treat this appliance (the battery maintainer) any different than other appliances in the house..Should we be unplugging everything in the house when we aren't using it? The toaster? The washing machine? Television? What about stuff hardwired into the house, like the AC or the dishwasher? What is unique about a battery maintainer that makes it more susceptible than other electrical devices to power surges?
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Wow, I have three maintainers, sometimes all in use at once. I will get surge protectors. I do use protectors for the televisions and high priced appliance to protect from surges. I do like the Advance Auto Parts maintainer the best of the 3 I have. The Auto Meter one works good too but doesn?t give all the information like the Advance does. Good info Walt.
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Dear Walt, Loren, Keith, Jim, and mid-60s Buick caregivers,
Thanks Walt for the info, but I have to agree with the majority - something doesn't add up here. A low amperage battery charger shouldn't be at any risk of catching fire. 3 amps at 12 volts requires only 0.3 amps of 120 volt house current - when charging. In standby mode, the current draw should be negligible. If collectors are reporting fires, the problem is real, but the problem has to be with the design of some of these devices. It would have been much more helpful to have received reports of which brands and models of chargers caught fire.
As it turns out, I have a surge protector for one of my chargers. I could get one for the other. It is an inexpensive precaution. Sadly, the power grid isn't as stable as it once was and caution is the better part of valor. However, I think the more important decision is to buy a battery charger from a trusted brand. Also, you might want to be cautious about new models of chargers. Unfortunately, politicians are meddling in our lives even for devices like battery chargers. California has mandated that all "always on" devices become more energy efficient. Engineers squeezed by this sort of nonsense mandates could be forced to compromise safety in order to meet the efficiency requirements.
Sadly, "such are da' conditions that prevail. . . . . . "
Edouard
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Maybe(?) the fire threat is largely due to the enormous current potential of the battery the charger is connected to. A malfunction in the charger could cause hundreds of amps of current to flow thru the changer and..... poof!
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I must be to cheap or overly protective OR BOTH . I don,t use a maintainer for the simple reason I don,t like anything plugged in or on when i,n not around .
My thinking is 1st , how much money do I have invested in my car or cars . 2nd , how much is my building worth , with all the misc. contents .
All i do is disconnect the cables and maybe once a winter throw a slow charge on the batteries and done . If I loose a battery over it so be it .
I know a battery is a 100 bucks but put that into perspective of what you could be risking . I almost always get at least 5 years out of my batteries and thats about how long they last so not really out anything anyway .
Now if a person was to have say 20 plus cars then a guy might want to look into something to help preserve the batteries .
Thats just my 2 cents worth and what I do . I did have to put 2 new batteries in my 84 chevy truck this spring but I looked at the date I installed them and they were almost 7 years old . :cheers2:
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Dear Walt, John, and mid-60s Buick owners who have to play the odds . . . . .
Maybe(?) the fire threat is largely due to the enormous current potential of the battery the charger is connected to. A malfunction in the charger could cause hundreds of amps of current to flow thru the changer and..... poof!
Of course that is 100% correct. There is an enormous amount of energy stored in a car battery and releasing it quickly is going to do harm. However, that is always true and the battery charger is simply one way of many to do this. Moreover, the engineers designing these chargers must understand the problem far better than any of us.
I must be to cheap or overly protective OR BOTH . I don,t use a maintainer for the simple reason I don,t like anything plugged in or on when i,n not around .
My thinking is 1st , how much money do I have invested in my car or cars . 2nd , how much is my building worth , with all the misc. contents .
. . . . . . . .
Thats just my 2 cents worth and what I do .
Okay, everyone is different, but before one gets too panicky it is worth pondering exactly how common this sort of event turns out to be. There are easily millions of these chargers sold every year. So the event in question is on the order of 1 in a million. Sadly, I wish the odds of having an automotive accident with my wagon were that low. I'll be the first to agree - caution is the better part of valor. Still, if a technology exists that makes my life more pleasant and I have good reason to believe it has been implemented in a prudent and safe manner - I'm inclined to use it. Of course we all need to be savvy shopper and try to make the best product choice we can given our understanding of the situation - what else can someone do in 2018? If you start to distrust technology in general, how can you feel safe getting out of bed in the morning?
Cheers, Edouard
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Dear cautious mid-60s Buick owners,
It just occurred to me that this question about trickle chargers might be an excellent topic for an email to the editors of Hagerty's magazine. After all, if there is any sort of problem, Hagerty's should see the issue on the claims they get. I just did a web search and the price of these chargers can vary by 1/3 or more. So it is possible that some of the chargers on the market are dangerous . . . . certainly could be! :angryfire: The 64 dollar question is whether or not the reported fires were caused by poorer quality chargers or something more fundamental.
I'd offer to write the letter, but I've already kind of stuffed their inbox with a rather lengthy item! (http://65gs.com/board/index.php/topic,4017.0.html) :laughing7:
Cheers, Edouard :occasion14:
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I will admit that i purchased an inexpensive trickle charger years ago, but the few times i have used it i removed the battery from the Buick and charged it away from my garage using a lamp timer ( set for 8 hours) plugged into a surge protected power strip that's plugged into a properly grounded extension cord. I also disconnect the battery cables when the Buick is not in use. I do a battery load test every year, if the battery is weak i simply get a new one. I get 5 to 6 years out of a Delco battery. And i trade in the old batteries. I don't like keeping old batteries around my garage, that's just another disaster waiting to happen.
The only problem with a battery accessory I've had was with one of those battery disconnect switches, My wife (then Pregnant) & I were on the NYS Thruway heading to the BCA National meet in Buffalo NY in 2001. And i thought i smelled something electrical burning so i stopped at the next rest area, opened the hood of the White GS looked around everything looked OK. When i got back in the GS it would not start, totally dead ! I looked under the hood again and checked the battery terminals and the disconnect switch , everything was tight. I loosened the disconnect switch looked at it and saw that it had burn marks from arcing. I removed it threw it in the garbage and never had a problem since then. I'm glad that i caught it in time before it damaged my GS and ruined my vacation.
Tony
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Interesting thread. Valid points made from everyone.
I run a Schumacher plugged into a surge protector. I have never had a portable with it and my battery works just as well as it did new, now 7 years old.
I think another thing to keep in mind is the age of your house. I live in a '95, with modern electrical equipment and fuse breakers. Of course, one must be sure that it has not been tampered with. (Mine had been pigtailed)
If you have an older electrical system then it is true, it may not be worth it.
When I leave town, I always unplug.
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From the 'For what it's worth department" this is the setup I use. The plug is hardwired to the car and the plug tucks up behind the grill badge. I have similar plugs in 3 other cars that see limited use. I rotate the tender between the three cars. This style tender will bring up a discharged battery as well as keep it full.