The Battery Blarney duo of George and Allen welcome Ed Rogers, National Service Support Manager at EnerSys, to talk about battery charging. The topic of proper battery charging is one of Allen’s passions and they discuss what happens when you undercharge and overcharge a battery. 

All batteries are not equal and the discussion covers temperature compensation and the  difficulty of determining the state of charge of a battery. They talk about freshening the charge per the manufacturer’s guidelines, lack of education on why it’s necessary to follow those guidelines, and the importance of optimizing battery life.

Highlights:

01:25 One thing I found in common with warranty claims, in over 50% of them, the paperwork that accompanied them showed the batteries were not being properly charged.

05:34 Corporate training teaches people how to do something, but it doesn’t teach them why they’re doing it. Basically education comes in two forms: you’ve got to educate the people, and then you can tell them how to do something. I think that’s one of the biggest problems we have at the present moment that people have been asked to do things and they don’t understand why they’re doing them. 

15:30 Overcharging has a much more devastating effect. When you overcharge a battery, you’re shoving in more current than the battery can handle. Current causes heat.

23:49 The battery itself, as it’s manufactured and leaves the factory, it’s only ever going to be in two states after that. It’s always going to be in discharge or it’s always going to be in charge.

52:18 We’ve known the use of zinc and manganese and nickel. They’ve been available almost since the start of battery technology, but they had chemical things that made them difficult to use. Some of that’s been overcome now.

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