K3/100 - Battery - A&A Engineering 5 Amp Smart Charger

[Paul-285]

If I connect a K3/100, a 2 meter rig, a 140 Amp Hour deep discharge
battery, and the A&A Engineering 5 Amp Smart Charger, all in
parallel, my understanding is that it would work fine.

The key here is that the A&A Engineering Smart Charger is already
protected against becoming a load if it's off, other than the 175
microAmps they mention on their site.

Is all this correct?





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[Don Wilhelm-3]

Paul,

That is correct, the A&A Smartcharger may become a light load (175uA)
when off, but I see no reason to ever turn it off if you have a battery
connected to it.

A word of caution about batteries - while the gel cells can be safely
used in an unvented area, a deep discharge battery (or any other 'wet
cell' SLA) will outgas hydrogen during charging, which can create an
explosion hazard.  Please put the battery in it own separate area
isolated from your operating, working and living area and adequately
vented to the outside air.  RV stores sell battery boxes that are sealed
and have a vent tube if you need to keep the battery in the shack/living
area.  Be Safe!

73,
Don W3FPR

[hidden email] wrote:

>
>
>
>
> If I connect a K3/100, a 2 meter rig, a 140 Amp Hour deep discharge
> battery, and the A&A Engineering 5 Amp Smart Charger, all in parallel,
> my understanding is that it would work fine.
>
> The key here is that the A&A Engineering Smart Charger is already
> protected against becoming a load if it's off, other than the 175
> microAmps they mention on their site.
>
> Is all this correct?

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[Bruce Bowman]

Wet (flooded) cell charging in an enclosed space is certainly a concern,
what with the vented hydrogen & oxygen gases. The HydroCap Corp. in
Miami developed a solution many years ago which has been used in marine,
solar & industrial installations where charging gases might accumulate.
HydroCap builds an unvented cap for flooded cell batteries which
contains a catalyst that recombines the hydrogen & oxygen to produce
water. The water then drips back into the cell replenishing at least
some of that lost during charging.

By no means does this make an SLA out of a flooded cell battery. Nor is
the seal perfect, so water has to be replenished (infrequently). And the
cap can get warm or even hot during charging, depending on the charge
rate... I would hit the batteries with over 100 A during initial charge
and the caps were hot enough to burn my finger. I doubt that's a problem
here.

They don't last forever (I think the catalyst must become contaminated
by battery acid over a period of years) and need to be either rebuilt by
HydroCap (I never tried that) or the whole cap assembly replaced. I used
them on 3 different boats over a 25 year period and was very pleased.

Bruce, NM5B
Santa Fe, NM

ps- no financial association with HydroCap... just a happy customer. And
as always, YMMV.

> A word of caution about batteries - while the gel cells can be safely
> used in an unvented area, a deep discharge battery (or any other 'wet
> cell' SLA) will outgas hydrogen during charging, which can create an
> explosion hazard.  Please put the battery in it own separate area
> isolated from your operating, working and living area and adequately
> vented to the outside air.  RV stores sell battery boxes that are
> sealed and have a vent tube if you need to keep the battery in the
> shack/living area.  Be Safe!
>
> 73,
> Don W3FPR

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