sla battery charging

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f22shift

f22shift

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 4, 2007
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Singapore, NY,SH,BJ
i have a left over 12v sla from a pob hid light. the thing is i dont ahve a charger for it. could i use one of those smart chargers designed for nicad/nimh. or maybe just plug in a cigarette socket direct drive in a car?

maybe a stupid question. :thinking:
 
Do you have a auto battery charger? set it on 2amp and if its an automatic charger leave it till it turns off if not keep your eye on it if its a manual style charger. Been using mine for years with no problems as long as you use the low amp charge
 
Virtually all the 12v sla batteries that I have, have the charging instructions printed on the side. There are 2 types of charging, continuous and intermittent. Both types take different voltages and current. If you put too much current into an sla you will ruin it. Check the printed instructions.
 
I have used a 12v auto charger that has a low scale that and dialed it down to about half an amp. Manual charging can be done but you have to watch both voltage and charging current and adjust so it doesn't overcharge or charge at too high of current rates. You could get a 500ma 12v wallwart and just do a rough timer charge on it, as long as charge levels are low in current a slight overcharge of SLAs at low current levels doesn't hurt them much to speak of. I have a 12v SLA on my lawnmower that just uses a wallwart to charge it as long as the wallwart doesn't make too high a voltage it should be ok as a dumb charger just have to remember to take it off instead of forgetting for a week.
 
Some of the hobby chargers will work fine. My Triton will charge SLA's safely, and there are cheaper hobby chargers out there.

Bill
 
I've several 12v SLA batteries which were once used on "float charge" in alarm panels. These are a few years old and every 4 - 6 months I charge them at only 50 - 75mA until they reach about 14v. Some take over 13 hours while the newer ones need only an hour or so. Be careful even at 1/2 amp.

I'll have to test their capacity with a 1/2 - 1A load one of these days to see how sulfated they've become.
 
For a 12V battery, you need (when using "cycle charge") a voltage of about 14.7V and a current of 1/10th of the capacity.

This way, nothing can go wrong as long as you monitor the charging current. When it doesn't fall any further, the battery is full.
Time to disconnect the charger!


Timmo.
 
I wouldn't go as high as 14.7v when charging an SLA. What is the model number of the battery? The manufacturer will have charging data.
 
I have two 6V 274Ah SLA's in series and i use an old 13.8V/1.5A CB-radio power source to (float)charge them.
I also have 12V/150Ah SLA, and several 12V/5-12Ah SLA's and i charge them all with the same charger.
Wurks grate.
 
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