Burgerman wrote:To be fair you have to do that with any charger!
But heres the thing. To properly charge any and every lead battery you *must* charge for a full 12 (best quality AGM) to 16 to 20 hours (with gel) in order to get a fully saturated 100% full charge. And that matters for lifespan.
sadly we cant wait that long, so most chargers that the mobility industry supply will give a green light as soon as their CV stage ends. So at a low charge rate of 8 to 10A, at CC or bulk, it takes around 1 to 6 hours to end stage 1 before that CV stage begins. So time wasted. Then they end CV far too soon and give a ready light. At this point the battery is starting the endless float stage. This does complete the charge if allowed to continue for another 6 to 16 hours or so depending on how much too soon the earlier CV stage ended.
At the point the green comes on, the battery is ALMOST charged. That last 1 to 2% however cannot be speeded up. It takes hours and hours. Does that extra 2% affect range? Not today. Or tomorrow. But it leaves some sulfates on the lead plates instead of returning them back to the electrolyte. And 1 or 2 percent of capacity is lost day on day. In the end this sulfate turns to large non conducting crystals. Which cant ever be removed no matter how much charging, or when the snake oil "de-sulfator" salesman says it can. So a few months down the line your range is reduced. And this eventually means you throw the battery away.
I just went for my last ride with the lead bricks. An I can tell they are less capacity than last summer. Went around 10 miles wanted to ride more maybe go grab something to eat but had to come home an set in my room bored an charge afraid the bricks would run out of juice.