I gotta tell you about this device right here. It's the HTRC Smart Trickle Charger and it's the
P15 model for lead-acid batteries. I actually used this product
to revive a weak, stratified car battery. Before I show you that,
you're gonna see an unboxing. So stay tuned, and watch the progress...
Here's what's inside: positive and negative clamps
The A/C adapter cord
These are actually battery screw-on clamps
if you want to connect the unit directly to your battery while it's in the car.
Here you have the smart charger, the P15 model itself.
It has an LCD screen, which displays voltage, current, battery power and temperature.
It's able to adapt and recognize a 12 volt battery with current of 2 amps, 5 amps, and 15 amps.
It's able to recognize a 24 volt battery with 5 amps, 8 amps, and 10 amps.
It has a 7-stage charging process.
In winter, when temperatures are below 10 degrees, it increases
the charging voltage to keep the unit warm. While in summer, when temperatures are above
28 degrees, it lowers the charging voltage to cool the unit.
This here is the touch mode which enables you to select between these different current options.
As well as the pulse repair mode. This pulse repair mode
repairs old and idle batteries. On the unit itself,
you have the fan here and the A/C
wall inputs and this is the input for the clamps. This battery has been sitting (idle) for a while.
I have my multimeter here, I'm gonna check the voltage.
It's actually discharged, 11.8 volts.
Even though it's 11.8 volts, you could still run a 12 volt car horn.
So the horn still works but
it doesn't have enough power for a cold start. In preparing the battery for trickle-charging,
it involves cleaning. I'm gonna drain the sulphuric acid in a container
and then use distilled water to wash the cells inside.
As
you can see, it's really... really dirty.
Why distilled water? Well,
it doesn't leave any mineral deposits. You don't want any
mineral deposits building up in your battery. What I'm gonna do now is give it a shake.
Shake it up!
You see all of that dirt?
I'm gonna do this a couple more times, to get it clean...
What we're gonna do now is put back the sulphuric acid back inside of each cells
and also to filter out all the deposits.
The cells are now full so, this battery is now ready to be trickle-charged.
I had a slight little spill. So it's good to have baking soda to neutralize the sulphuric acid.
For trickle-charging, if you notice, the lids are off.
This is gonna take some time.
Anywhere between 48 hours for the battery to be rebuilt and fully charged again...
(48 hours later) The battery is now fully charged.
I'm
gonna check the resting voltage with the multimeter.
So there you go, 12.36
So this battery can be used for a cold-start in starting a car.