MTFCA Forum

Hello.

It is now ~1 year ago that I bought a "NOCO GENIUS 5" automated battery charger.
I love to have seldom used cars and motorcycles permanently on chargers, so batteries are maintained automatically. This works fine on 12V so I was also looking for a similar solution on 6V. Most chargers treat 6V batteries automatically as being very small (around 10Ah) and therefore have a very little charging current, so I was surprised that NOCO (http://no.co) offers the GENIUS 5, allowing a charging current of 5A @ 6V.

Later I figured out that this charger is actually a very poor product. While it allows charging on 6V@5A, all the rest (de-sulphuring the battery, trickle charging, repair of weak batteries, ...) is only available at 12V. So this is my first "crap made in USA" device. Why can't they implement the same functionality also on 6V side?


What I want to ask:
Is there any fully operational charger (including desulphatisation, trickle charging, battery repair, ...) for 6V 88 Ah batteries available? Primary voltage is 220/230V AC @ 50Hz (Europe)

There is a very easy solution to your problem, mount two 6V batteries in series and put your charger on 12V that way you can use all the functions on 12 to work on your 6Volt batteries.
Be sure though that the two batteries are about equal in charge level, if the level of the two is too different a big current will result between the two and might wreck both batteries....

I have two of these and they work great for me. I don’t regularly drive my 3 T’s all the time and these keep my batteries up.
https://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SC131 ... 2229&psc=1

You might check suppliers of marine battery chargers.

Hello, Kaiser.

Kaiser wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 26, 2022 4:38 am

There is a very easy solution to your problem, mount two 6V batteries in series and put your charger on 12V that way you can use all the functions on 12 to work on your 6Volt batteries.
Be sure though that the two batteries are about equal in charge level, if the level of the two is too different a big current will result between the two and might wreck both batteries....

To paragraph 1:
This is definitely no solution, because one battery is in use (inside the car, while the other one is almost never in use (because it is standing on the floor).
As result, the battery with lower inner resistance (= the better one) will have a lower voltage, while the bad/other one will have a higher voltage. This finally leads into a never fully charged better battery (and damaging it this way over time) and a toasted bad one.

To paragraph 2:
Two batteries in SERIES never can cause a big current as you describe. This only can happen with two batteries in PARALLEL (+ poles connected to each other and - poles connected to each other).
To get a "12V battery", you have to connect them in series, in this case the voltages of battery 1+2 are added. The drawback is: both batteries are then receiving the same charging current (Amperes). The weaker one will rise its voltage quicker, the charger "thinks" the 12V battery is full and stops charging, but in reality the better battery is still not full.

This method guarantees two bad batteries in relatively short time.

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 26, 2022 8:55 am

I have two of these and they work great for me. I don’t regularly drive my 3 T’s all the time and these keep my batteries up.
https://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SC131 ... 2229&psc=1

Hello, John.

Schumacher sounds relatively "German". So I tried to find this charger at amazon.de -> No success.

I will have a closer look on the 3.5 A model and also check back with manufacturer.

Griot's Garage sells a very nice 6V-12V battery charger. I have one and like it very much. It has a 2 Amp - 10 Amp - 20 amp charge rate for 6 or 12 volt and has settings for standard, AGM and gel types of batteries.

For a battery maintainer all you need is .75 amps, 1.5 and 2 amps will boil it dry over time. For charging a dead good battery you can give it 10 - 15 amps for a short time, enough to get going.
If a good battery is flat for whatever reason it will take 10 amps for 10 hrs to fully charge it.
If a battery is rated at 100 amp hrs it will take 100 hours at one amp per hour discharge to fully discharge it and equally to recharge it. After it is fully charged and the 1-2 amps charge continues it will boil the battery dry and destroy it. Only .75 is needed to maintain what is lost from normal discharging while it is not in service. I have seen a 2 amp charger left on perpetually and it destroyed a new battery in less than two years. Deep cycle batteries are not the best because they are designed to be fully discharged and recharged on a regular basis, as on golf carts and on other battery powered devices.

I bought a schumaker charger at WalMart . 6 and 12 volts at various charging level. It works well.
They are available at Lowe's, Ace, Amazon]

Art M wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 26, 2022 12:16 pm

I bought a schumaker charger at WalMart . 6 and 12 volts at various charging level. It works well.
They are available at Lowe's, Ace, Amazon]

Me too. Inexpensive and works well on the rare occasion I use it.

New batteries are charged and put on the shelf, sometimes for six or more months before they are sold. They hold a charge because they are not connected to anything. If you install a cutoff switch or just remove the ground connection when storing for a month or more, there is no need for a "trickle" charger.

Rainer who is the original poster for this post in in Austria. There could be a hardware or farm equipment store at his location. They have the Schumacher charger sometimes.

I thought the name Schumacher sounded familiar so went out and checked. I’ve had this charger well over 40 years, so long I can’t remember where I bought it. It’s the most useful and reliable piece of equipment I’ve ever owned. I’ve used it on all my car and airplane batteries (conventional and maintenance free) for as long I’ve owned it. Right now it’s maintaining the battery in my ‘25 express wagon, which has kaput magneto and generator. After a couple of days of driving (only 10 miles or so) it hits the battery (that came with the T last summer) with about 7 amps and settles down to near zero in a few hours. It’s been on several days now and the needle is just vibrating around zero.

Thanks for all your replies.
As finally mentioned, I am from Austria. I have looked at many places, but 6V chargers are very rare. In case they support 6V, they often switch into a "moped" mode, assuming 8Ah-12Ah batteries.

Anyway, now something positive:.
Yesterday I waited until 9:00 Pacific Time (18:00 here in Austria), the opening time of NOCO in USA, then I contacted them by Support Chat...

The result in brief what they said/claimed:
The NOCO GENIUS 5 does desulphurization when needed, and also does a lot of other management things. The guy I was chatting with appeared to know what he does, but I had to ask for every particular detail, he didn't tell anything by himself.
GENIUS 5 also uses several steps of charging, from Diagnose, Recovery, Initialize, ...till maintenance.
After 1/2 hour of chat he came out with this link: https://no.co/support/understand-charging-steps

Asking why they don't expose this to inclined readers of their manuals and add 2-3 additional LEDs to the device, as all competitors do, he stated:
»We don't do that to protect our proprietary charging method.«

Hmm - This is the first company not promoting their "exceptional" features to increase sales, they also don't think about mentioning that it will be worth to mention that all this works with 12V and 6V in same way (the manual lets me think it does this only at 12V)... Comparing that to typical U.S. advertizing style, where a simple screw driver has at least 4-5 functions, this appears a bit mysterious to me, but ok, it is their busines, not mine.

So I can either believe what they said/claimed, or not, but what I could watch during last half year of GENIUS 5 in action, it seems to be true. I can see on my dashboard (yes, I also implemented a digital volt meter with one decimal precision) that battery voltage is moving up/down between re-charging start and charging end), so NOCO definitely does some maintenance.

I find it increasingly difficult to extract information from manufactuerers and service providers as time goes by. I suppose it's due to fear of lawsuits, fear of infringement, and/or ignorance on the part of persons who can be contacted, if any persons can be contacted. It can be difficult to determine who actually manufactured many products. Often it's difficult to impossible to obtain any printed matter relating to a product, even a major item like an automobile.

Same here, the NOCO little one on the left is supposed to work on 6v, but never has.

I mostly use the center one, works great!

The unit on the right is sold for the Optima Red Tops, and I like it too, works good. All are 6v-12v switchable.

BTY, I don't leave them on the battery for extended times, un-attended. Place them on the batteries every few weeks for just a day, then shut them down overnight, when leaving the garage.
Just in case!

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 26, 2022 8:55 am

I have two of these and they work great for me. I don’t regularly drive my 3 T’s all the time and these keep my batteries up.
https://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SC131 ... 2229&psc=1

I only have one, but it works great for me also on either 6 or 12 volts.