>You're right, I had forgotten about your Webers. Umm, how muck gas do you
>burn per mile?
I get about 28-30 miles per gallon in the city if I don't let the second
barrel open up in which case I get 20mpg. Highway mileage is close to
38 mpg.
>Thanks for the charger notes. About a trickle chasrge, I'd wonder about that
>100ma figure. Bob Leger sent me a note about his having options of 2 and 6
>amps, and the 2amp setting being good for overnight. Is there something else
>behind that trickle-charge 100(or 30)milliamp figure? Does it maybe refer to
>battery chargers for smaller batteries than car batteries? THe rest of those
>points all make sense. Maybe I should ask what trickle charging means?
>
>Jim
If a lead acid battery is fully discharged, trying to charge it at two
amps or 6amps will only lead to a certain amount of charge being accepted
by the battery. The rest on the energy will go to heating the plates.
If one of the cells' is completely out of charge it just won't take up
any charge, it'll just heat. I have forgotten the exact mechanism behind
this phenomenon but it seems that a low current charging after the battery
has taken up a charge and produced the rated voltage helps in fully
charging the battery. What commercial battery chargers do is that they
charge the battery at a high current (maybe 10Amp) rate initially till
12.3 volts appears at the terminals then they limit the current or `trickle
charge' around 50-100mA for 24 hours. Seems that this low current is
responsible for disloging the salt that has formed on the plates. The
high current will only heat the plates. Trickle charge will only work
if there are some ions left in the solution if there aint none then
you'd have to add some acid and the proper salt. I suspect this
is how they produce reconditioned batteries from deserted batteries.
Some of these I've used before and they are quite good but never seen
'em in this country.
Zahid
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