Accumate Battery Charger

Allan Richards · Post by **Allan Richards** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:08 pm

When I bought the Tiger I bought an Accumate battery charger which I thought was the best that I could buy. Below is all the details of how it charges batteries with a three step process. Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago I left the Tigers headlights on and only discovered it yesterday. This meant that one of the batteries (supplying the 12v circuit) was totally flat. I put the 24v charger on to charge both bateries together, but it didn't recognise the batteries and wouldn't start charging them, so I then diconnected the batteries put my 12v car jump start battery device across the dead battery for a few minutes after which the Accumate, set to 12v, decided to recognise the battery and start to charge. I then reconnected the batteries as a pair, set the Accumete to 24v, then left it to get on with things but when I went to check after about 6 hours the batteries were very hot in my opinion, but the charger was still on bulk charging mode. I took the batteries off charge and left them to cool until this morning. When I reconnected the Accumate it went straight onto the middle charge, checking after a few hours it was still on middle charge but the batteries were cool. Once I took the charger off for a few minutes and put it back on the batteries it went onto the lowest charge. I gave the tank a good run this evening and the batteries seem none the worse for wear but I don't trust the charger to switch now. It could be that it was quite hot in the garage, about 35 deg which fooled the charger in some way.

Just a word of warning to others, don't trust these chargers and keep an eye on things.

3-Step Charging algorithm with automatic thermal adjustment of voltage settings.

Constant current bulk charge until the voltage has risen to 14.4V at 20Â°C.
14.4V absorption stage until the charge current falls to 0.17 x full charge current.
Float mode voltage limited at 13.7V. Should the battery being maintained at any stage require current exceeding 0.17 x full charge current the program reverts to the absorption stage. The battery can then draw current as required until this again reduces to 0.17 x full charge current whereupon the float mode will again engage.

Paul Morris · Post by **Paul Morris** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:48 pm

Hi Alan
My original Accumate pro the one that charges 12 or 24 volt seems to have died a death

it shows the tank batts going onto bulk charge briefly then flicks between absorb and maintain then onto maintain all this in about a minute... trouble is it turns out that it is not charging at all and i nearly lost a set of batteries due to this problem i.e. i was trusting the charger thought i had a problem with my Sherman when in fact the charger was telling me the batteries wer full when they wer just about drained not too good with a heavy model like the ones we are running luckily on the one i have you can disengage the drive. I have been onto Accumate and guess what no reply in two weeks

Cheers Paul

Allan Richards · Post by **Allan Richards** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:54 pm

Paul,

Thats not good, its clearly not recognising that the batteries are flat and need charging. When I charged the Sherman batteries for the open day the charger worked fine. When its on maintain it is only trickle charging so it wold take ages to charge the batteries. I would see if you can get a phone number for Accumate and see if they will fix your charger, preferably FOC!!

Allan