charging

[William1221]

have the powerizer model ho1200006 recharger. Want to charge my excal battery . been out of the loop for abt a year or so ( medical probs.) Cant find the powerizer instructions for recharging my battery. recharger says it has and auto shut off. will the small light on the charger go off? thanks PS after sitting dormant for at least a year the batteries still have a charge but I dont know how much How long should I charge?

 

[Joe of South Jersey]

What you could do is run the charge out......Start fresh

After the discharge, Charge for 24-36 hrs. This will give you a full and fresh charge.

Just my opinion.....

 

[William1221]

thanks for the reply I read somewhere that critterhunter uses a light and attaches that to the battery? for draining the battery know nothing abt wiring Have no clue how to do this any suggestions?

 

[Critterhunter]

A car tail light bulb will work. Just clip the battery leads to the two terminals on the light bulb. After the light dies let it sit like that for like another half hour or so to make sure it's completely dead.

Does that charger have a way to set the charging current (amps)? Probably not. Anyway, look on the charger for it's output current or amps. Let's say it says 100ma (milli amps) and your battery is 1100ma. That would mean it would take about 11 hours to charge a completely dead pack. In other words, divide the output amps of the charger into the capacity of the battery pack to figure out roughly how long it should take.

If the battery charger has an automatic shut off then just wait until the charger light changes (either goes on or off). I would guess the light comes on when charging and goes off when done, but it could be vise versa.

 

[Critterhunter]

I just did a search for that model number charger and I don't see it. You sure you got the model number right? Post it and I'll see what I can dig up on it's charging rate and how it notifies you that the charge is done.

 

[William1221]

your right critterhunter, I could not bring it up either , about 2 years ago this was a hot topic on the forum I THINK I asked Mels advise on which charger to get since Im electrically challanged lol I wish I could find the directions.out voltage 6-12 v dc auto cut off.

 

[Rick(ND)]

As this can harm the battery and even reverse the polarity of the battery and not sure where I read this, but know i have read this several times. Some of us use chargers that will discharge to a safe level then recharge to a safe level and go to a trickle charge in case you forget the battery on the charger so you don't overcharge. I have one of the old Sun Ray SR 12 chargers i use and just love it as I have recovered many Ni Cad pack that have been abused.There is several chargers that will do this by taking and discharging to a safe level and recharging to the correct voltage. These chargers are great also for the Nickle metal hydride's as they have to be woke up to fully take a full charge, so I will discharge, charge then discharge and recharge again so it will hold a full charge.
If you don't have one of these chargers I would turn on the detector and let it run until it shows low battery or quits working as I believe the Sovereign when it gets so low it will shut itself down, I know my Explorers and E-Tracs do.

Rick

 

[Critterhunter]

Well, you want it set for 12VDC but it doesn't say what the charging rate is? Auto cut off is a good thing. Put it this way, when you've used it before how long did it take to charge a dead pack? You could drain the pack dead, charge it, and then note how long it took to finish. That will tell you roughly what charging rate it is using. I'm just concerned that it is charging really really fast and that that could hurt the battery.

 

[Critterhunter]

Discharging the battery all the way won't hurt anything so long as you don't let it sit on the shelf that way for months on end. There are really two camps in the battery world as to whether a nimh or nicad should be drained all the way dead. Some prefer not to drain it dead because of the reverse polarity potential. Others believe draining it dead is the only way to fully excercise the battery so that it provides higher capacities and thus longer run times. I fall into that camp. I've been draining my packs dead a few times a year for a long time and never had a problem. This should only be done 2 or maybe 3 times a year to fully excercise the battery. This used to be true for Nicads to avoid memory problems (memory issues are no longer really a problem for nicads), but it still is beneficial to nimhs as it excercizes them and gives them greater capacity.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have seen too many batteries drain completely dead and ruined, never have a problem with letting the charger discharge to a safe level then recharged again, same with the NiMh as they have been lasting longer when I do this when new a couple of times, then discharging them and recharging a couple times a year. When I used Ni Cad on some of the first Sovereigns as that is the only thing they had I would carry the alkaline pack with alkaline in when the Ni Cad went dead while detecting and recharge them when I got home, one of the pack i had was the original one that came with the XS and was 7 years old and still worked great when I sold the Sovereign.

 

[Harold in NC]

Their is a nice Guy who makes chargers for excals and he sells them for a hundred bucks or so, it really is a nice looking unit and his Name is Peter Erickson Lives here in Fla. and he's 72, here's a picture of it, if you check on the parts it will cost you nearly that much without putting it together yourself.

 

[deepdiger60]

Hi william 1 is this what your looking for ? Jim