by Burgerman » 25 Nov 2021, 23:36
Anything pretty much "works" to charge any battery.
But a deep cycle battery has very important needs if you want to get a sensible service life. And you should care because a good deep cycle battery are damned expensive.
Mobility charger do several things wrong. Some horribly wrong. But all are pretty crap.
To charge a gel battery for e.g takes a very long time. Longer than we really have in the typical 8 hour overnight charge. Typically it takes around 12 to 16 hours at a very controlled voltage of 14.1V max (28.2) at room temperature of 20C. A mobility charger typically will give you a "green light" after 5 to 7 hours. And tell you its charged. Its not! Thy typically charge at a too low rate too. Because the chairs loom is too thin. And the connector is not very good. Although they can take more than 8A. But an 8A charger is cheaper. And thats the main thing that seems to be important! A typical mobility charger will charge your gel battery at maybe 14.4 to 14.6V instead. Thats 28.8, to 29.2V for 2 batts.
That willreduce service life aone by over a half. And the undercharging in time allows them to sulfate and that also shortens service life. So you batteries soon die. Or lose range. The manufacturers neither care or probably understand this. So you get an underpowered charger that over volts the battery and terminates charge too soon.
They are better (slightly) on AGM batteries. But while they are better they still end too soon, and are very variable. And AGMs dont last as long to begin with compared to gel.
And this is MK own data.