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Battery charger fully charging or not?

Draker

Draker

Well Known Member
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I'm seeing some strange behavior using an Odyssey 6A battery charger/maintainer paired with an Odyssey PC680 battery. After a full night plugged in, the charger shows the battery is at 100% (5/5), and the unit is in "Auto Maintain" mode. Indicating the charge cycle is finished, and it's just keeping it charged.

Then, if I unplug the charger and plug it back in, it always indicates 60% (3/5) and goes right back into "Charging" mode. So is the battery charged or not? Has anyone else seen this strange behavior with a similar setup?

Video of what's happening:
 
Draker said:
I'm seeing some strange behavior using an Odyssey 6A battery charger/maintainer paired with an Odyssey PC680 battery. After a full night plugged in, the charger shows the battery is at 100% (5/5), and the unit is in "Auto Maintain" mode. Indicating the charge cycle is finished, and it's just keeping it charged.

Then, if I unplug the charger and plug it back in, it always indicates 60% (3/5) and goes right back into "Charging" mode. So is the battery charged or not? Has anyone else seen this strange behavior with a similar setup?

Video of what's happening:
Click to expand...
How old is the battery?
 
Draker said:
I'm seeing some strange behavior using an Odyssey 6A battery charger/maintainer paired with an Odyssey PC680 battery. After a full night plugged in, the charger shows the battery is at 100% (5/5), and the unit is in "Auto Maintain" mode. Indicating the charge cycle is finished, and it's just keeping it charged.

Then, if I unplug the charger and plug it back in, it always indicates 60% (3/5) and goes right back into "Charging" mode. So is the battery charged or not? Has anyone else seen this strange behavior with a similar setup?

Video of what's happening:
Click to expand...
I use the same Odyssey 6A battery charger to charge two PC680's in parallel 24/7. I noted the same thing and had the same question awhile ago. Both batteries measured 12.84 volts the next day after unplugging (just looked at my notes), and load testing showed them to be good (did not use an AGM thin film tester, however). I just shrugged, assumed it was some vagary of the charger, and didn't bother to call Odyssey about it. That was about 1.5 years ago and periodic multimeter testing continues to show voltage in excess of 12.8-something.
 
I see something similar: once charger enters ‘maintenance mode’, if I draw significant current from the battery the charger does not go back to ‘charging’ mode, e.g.,, it’s locked onto maintenance mode. If I then cycle the charger power it goes back to charging mode.
 
Draker said:
Battery is a little less than 4 years old. No actual problems observed, turns the starter just fine. Just wondering about the behavior of the charger.
Click to expand...
I suppose the follow on question is how long does it stay in charge mode after you cycle it that second time, if for a long or normal time, then 4yrs is likely time for a new battery. I switched away for LA or AGM batteries for just about everything partly because of the weight savings also for the significantly higher cycle counts. If it truly is charged, it should stay in charge mode all that long before it switches to maint. Unless the internal resistance has changed due to age, use, etc. then it may show as charging for a longer time, but is just burning amps as heat, another bad thing for a battery.

It still could be the charger, only way to figure that out is with a new battery or some ones else's new battery :)...
 
I think this is a vagary of the charger. Mine has always done this, even with a new battery.
 
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