Optima battery question

[turbomonaro]

Hey have a Optima red top, just wondering what you guys do in regards to charging??.
My auto guy recommended to keep the charger on 24/7 but I have already killed a trickle charger.
And purchased A new projector charger but the battery guy said no too charging 24/7 so abit up in the air, his thoughts were that it would be dangerous to do so. So what's the norm out there ......?.. Thanks guys

[kochevy67]

Optima sells a charger for their batteries. They are coming out with a new one some of us got a sneak peek at it while in Vegas at the PT.com dinner. I am sure someone else will chime in on this. As for me I have used a craftsman battery maintainer on mine for years and never had a problem. I can tell you that a friend of a friend was using a Black and Decker one and it burned the garage down, so needless to say I stay away from their brand.

[turbomonaro]

Thanks for the heads up that's what I was worried about.
If the charger burns out, as my sons room is over to top
Of the garage.
So thanks for your reply. Any other advice anyone

[KWIKND]

The "Battery Tender" works great for me. I think it brought my red top back from the scrap pile after being in paint prison for a year and a half
Dan

[Rhino]

I've tried quite a few chargers on optimas over the years. My neighbour recently picked up an Optima D1200. If quickly charging an optima is your goal, that thing does it better than anything else I've found. I'll be purchasing one shortly.

[TheJDMan]

Go to YouTube and search for Optima charging. They have a rather extensice video on how to charge their batteries or any AGM battery. John Deere also sells a smart charger designed for AGM batteries for a lot less than the Optima charger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzC1hBsZ1Rg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_uTnth9LDs

[OptimaJim]

Leaving a quality battery maintenance device on and charging all the time should not be dangerous at all. However, it is important to make sure you are using a quality device that properly-regulates both voltage and amperage. I read a lot of comments from folks who brag about the $6 charger they pulled out of a bargain bin at their local retailer, but I also read a lot of comments from other folks who had serious issues with those same units.

Quality battery maintenance devices will be microprocessor-controlled and properly-regulate both amperage and voltage. The best units will also have AGM-specific settings (not to be confused with “gel” or “gel/AGM” settings, which should not be used on non-gel batteries, including Optimas). Either our Digital 1200 or Digital 400 will get the job done just fine, although I'm not sure what their availability is in Oz yet. The Digital 1200 has more features and will charge at a faster rate, but the Digital 400 is significantly less expensive and is perfect for someone just looking to maintain a battery when a car is not being used regularly. If you have any other questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[1989GTA]

What is the difference between the red top and the yellow top Optima batteries?

[blunt420]

id like to know can a yellow top be brought back from the dead this is my 2nd and for some reason they just arent lasting?

[andrewb70]

I just unhook the battery when I know it will sit for a long time. I've had the same Optima Red Top in my GTO since 2002.

Andrew

[GrabberGT]

I just unhook the battery when I know it will sit for a long time. I've had the same Optima Red Top in my GTO since 2002.

Andrew

This is what I do. I was just telling someone the other day that I've had the same Yellow top for 10 years now and its never been on a charger.

[Mike Holleman]

Red top is a regular automotive starter battery and a yellow top is a deep cycle.

[OptimaJim]

1989GTA, RedTops are considered SLI (starting/lighting/ignition) batteries and are suitable for the vast majority of applications. YellowTops are designed for both starting and deep-cycle use, so if your vehicle has significant electrical demands, like a large stereo, car alarm, winch, etc... or no charging system at all, a YellowTop is a more appropriate choice. For batteries of identical size (like a Group 34), RedTops will have slightly more cranking amps, while YellowTops will have slightly more reserve capacity. We also created a YouTube video that explains the differences in more detail- http://youtu.be/SRSeqepGN60

blunt420, what are the circumstances surrounding the issues you are having and have you by chance ever measured battery voltage when you were having issues?

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[19sixtynine]

I bought a used yellow top, put it on a "Battery Tender" brand charger and left it for 3 years while I worked on my car. I thought for sure it would be a goner, but nope, it fired the car right up and continues to run strong. I've been driving the car since November and when I pull it in the garage I jsut hook it right back up to the tender. I own 2 battery tenders and love them, never had a problem and have been using that brand for about 10 years on various cars, bikes and boats.

[renegade6]

I had an optima red top in my 57 truck and let it sit for a year disconnected while I was deployed and it started right up when I got back.

[1989GTA]

Thanks Jim and others. I will go ahead and purchase a red top Optima.

[MonzaRacer]

Well now I bought a "blem" blue top and it sat out on gravel next to my Camaro body I was working on. The Interstate I had in my truck took a dump when my starter started pulling over 600 amps (and then installed the Optima) funny how 600 amps made insulation slide real nice on starter positive cable!
Ran that battery till I parked in 08, then after sitting it went bad. I have a GP 65 DieHard in truck , was only 2 mo old, Customer had drain issues so he bought new Interstate (both built by Johnson Controls, same line even) guess I need to open hood and recheck it as it has sat for about 6 mo. Was cold when tried to start truck,,,guess its warm enough NOW. And Im more healed up from my wreck.

[Rhino]

Jim, could you possibly give any insight into why the optimas tend to have a higher incidence of failure when their charge is allowed to drain? I know this was my own fault, however I've had a few of them die due to lack of use without a maintainer. In a similar use case a typical battery drains however is able to recharge.

At some point I was told that the polarity of an individual cell could "flip" when recharging. The other day I did take an optima which was completely dead and threw it on the D1200. The first two attempts stated it wasn't able to charge. After the third conditioning it did allow a charge, however after a few hours it boiled the battery. After feeling the individual cells one was extremely hot while the others were warm. Could this be a side effect of a flipped cell?

[MIKE67]

I just got a new red top. Had the same info in the instructions. (I got this from http://www.optimabatteries.com/us/en/support/faqs/)

If an OPTIMA battery is deeply discharged (below 10.5 volts), most basic chargers will not supply a charge. Also keep in mind that an OPTIMA battery will not recharge properly if treated as a regular flooded or gel battery. To charge the battery, you can wire a second fully charged automotive battery (12+volts) to the discharged AGM in parallel (+ to + and – to –). Then hook up the charger to the deeply discharged battery, setting the charger at 10 amps. Leave for two hours, monitoring frequently. During this process, if the discharged battery gets very hot or if it is venting (hissing sound from vents), then stop this process immediately. When the discharged battery reaches 10.5 volts or more, remove the standard battery and continue charging the AGM until fully charged.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2013/05/charging_illustration-1.gif
For normal charging, a relatively low current, such as one or two amps, can work well, but when the battery has been deeply discharged, some sulfation of the battery plates may have occurred. If you charge at 10 amps, the higher current will help to break up this sulfation.

If you have an automatic charger, let it run until the charger indicates charging is complete. If you have a manual charger, you can get a rough estimate of the charging time in hours of a completely discharged battery (11.2 volts) by multiplying the capacity (amp hours or Ah) of the battery by 1.2. If your battery is not completely discharged, the time would be less.

In most cases these steps will recover an AGM battery. It’s OK for the AGM battery to get slightly warm during the charging process. If it’s hot to the touch, it means there’s a short and the process should be discontinued.

[OptimaJim]

Hi Rhino, I'm not aware of any incidences of higher failure rates with our batteries when they are allowed to drain, when compared to any other battery. Whenever any battery is discharged below 12.4 volts and is left sitting in that state, sulfation will begin to form on the battery plates, which diminishes both capacity and lifespan. That goes for Optima or any other brand or manufacturer. In fact, some other manufacturers will specifically list a minimum voltage level for warranty coverage. Bring a battery in that has been discharged below that level and your warranty is void!

AGM batteries are actually more resilient to deep-discharges than flooded batteries, but as Larry pointed out, many chargers won't provide current to a battery, unless it registers a minimum voltage that is typically at least around 10.5 volts. In those instances, the parallel charging technique he referenced can recover those deeply-discharged batteries. However, not every deeply-discharged battery can be recovered and batteries are consumable items. It is ok for batteries to get warm while charging, but if they get hot to the touch, charging should be discontinued and they should be recycled.

AGM batteries have much lower internal resistance than flooded batteries. This allows them to accept and deliver current at much higher rates than their flooded counterparts and deliver current longer than a flooded battery, which may stop providing power around 10.5 volts. That's great news if you are a tournament angler discharging your batteries down to 7 volts on a windy day. That may not be quite so good news for a hot rodder who only drives his car once a week and has an alarm with an 80-milliamp draw (or a poorly-wired stereo system or a new Corvette or any other vehicle that is known to discharge batteries in a key-off state). I've heard various theories about what happens to batteries when they go bad, but I'm not sure how an individual cell's polarity could ever be reversed by itself or without impacting the polarity of the other cells in the battery.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[Rhino]

Larry, I'm charging an Optima battery with an Optima charger. In the past I've used the parallel battery charging method however the selling point of the Optima charger is that it's "set and forget". It actually requires you select the particular type of Optima (red/yellow/blue) so one could assume the intelligence within the charger would inherently know how to charge the battery without additional voodoo. After reading Jim's response maybe I should continue doing so for low voltage batteries.
It must do some sort of active monitoring given what the LCD shows throughout the charge process. The charging rate does vary quite considerably. It did put 12 - 13 Amps to the battery at times. The battery was left connected and unused in a vehicle for about 9 months, and was quite dead. It's possible the charger was aware of the potential sulfation and acted accordingly. Your theory of a voltage cutoff for charging does make absolute sense in this scenario. The LCD on the charger mentions it's "conditioning" prior to the charge point. After 2 of these cycles the battery did begin to charge.

Jim, Thanks for the info. I have no scientific evidence to back it up, however my comment about higher incidence of failure does not come from one individual experience. I'm also completely ignoring "tribal knowledge" from both internet and local gearheads (which you have to take with a grain of salt). I'm speaking from first hand experience with a number of batteries in a hand full of vehicles I've owned for 10+ years.
At first I didn't believe there was a difference until I jumped whole hog into using optimas and did so again after having some fail what I felt to be prematurely. When a particular battery wasn't available for a quick replacement I went back to a standard battery. So far it's outlasted both individual red tops. In my experience, standard battery time to replacement has been much longer in occasional use vehicles which tend to sit for long periods of time in a low/semi charged state. They seem to have a much better "revival rate". If one is very studious and insures that a charged state was always maintained they're great in occasional use. In my daily drivers I still use Optimas without question as I love the battery.

This is what lead me to purchase the D1200. I loved the charger after testing one, and it brought back one of the batteries I felt was dead. The second I tested boiled. Maybe this particular battery was too far gone, or it's an isolated incident. Only time will tell.

By no means am I trying to beat Optima up over their products or I'm an unhappy customer. It's quite the opposite. It's not every day you get the ear of someone working directly for a company; I'm just trying to determine what the actual cause could be to prevent it from happening in the future.

[OptimaJim]

Rhino, “set and forget” does suggest some input on the user's part. However, our chargers are smart enough that if you simply connect the battery to one of our units and walk away, after a set period of time, it will begin charging on it's own and automatically go into maintenance mode afterwards, even if you don't provide any input as to the type of battery. If your unit exceeded 12.0 amps at any point, I'd really like more information on that and if you could re-create it with a photo, that would be even better.

It is not a theory that some chargers have minimum voltage thresholds, it is fact. The minimum threshold for our chargers is 1.25 volts, although for many chargers, it can be as high as 10.5 volts. It is possible that your battery was so sulfated or had tab corrosion, that the charger determined it couldn't accept a charge, although after repeating that process a few times, enough of a surface charge may have been delivered in the previous testing processes, to allow it to begin charging.

I spend every day online, listening to folks who have questions or concerns about our products, so I totally understand that there is a perception amongst some (which often includes personal experience), that there is some kind of quality-related issue with our products. However, there is rarely, if ever, a connection made between the fact that lots of people are talking about our products (both positively and negatively), because lots of people own them- more than any other AGM brand out there by a significant margin.

AGM batteries are a different technology than traditional flooded batteries and they will react differently in applications. Probably the biggest difference between the two is a result of the extremely low internal resistance of AGM products, which allows them to provide power longer (and discharge more deeply) than flooded batteries. This difference tends to manifest itself quickly in off-road applications, where users are running batteries down with winches and other big-draw accessories and more slowly amongst hot rodders, whose cars slowly discharge batteries as they sit in storage. Either way, this difference can make AGM batteries more challenging to recover with many battery chargers on the market and traditional recovery methods (jump-starting).

I think the industry is working very hard right now to find ways to educate both retailers and consumers about AGM technology, because it is quickly taking OE market share from flooded products, especially in start/stop applications and will be doing the same in the aftermarket as well. We have both an online training program for our retail partners, as well as a program that travels the country, bringing the experience to them. We also created a whole host of YouTube videos, which also explains the technology. Some other brands have simply elected to just void warranties on deeply-discharged batteries. We haven't done that and as a result, we end up with a massive quantity of “bad” Optima batteries that are only deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly-recharged.

For every internet story about a “bad” Optima battery someone had, we probably have ten batteries at our warranty return center that have nothing wrong with them, some of them probably the same batteries people were complaining about online. We don't re-sell those batteries once we determine they aren't really bad, so they used to go straight to the smelter for recycling. This year, we started sponsoring the Chumpcar World Series and we're sticking those batteries into their race cars (we did over 100 just at Road America). Each time we do, we tell those guys the story of how someone else's “bad” battery came to find a new home in their race car. After running the battery in their race cars for seven hours or more, they seem pretty convinced there's really nothing wrong with them. We hope they tell their friends and help spread the word.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[Rhino]

Again, I feel I should restate that I'm not attempting to state that there is a quality issue with Optima products. In general it's more of a comparison of AGM vs standard lead acid. If I did feel Optima had poor products I wouldn't be using them in other vehicles and wouldn't have purchased an Optima charger.

I'll see if I can duplicate the results, and snap a picture of it. While I could be remembering incorrectly, I do feel strongly that I saw the display peak to 13 amps. I found it puzzling since the model number indicates a maximum of 12 amps. You did mention earlier that AGM's have a lower internal resistance. It sounds most likely that the low resistance and high sulfation is what lead to this particular issue.



AGM batteries are a different technology than traditional flooded batteries and they will react differently in applications. Probably the biggest difference between the two is a result of the extremely low internal resistance of AGM products, which allows them to provide power longer (and discharge more deeply) than flooded batteries. This difference tends to manifest itself quickly in off-road applications, where users are running batteries down with winches and other big-draw accessories and more slowly amongst hot rodders, whose cars slowly discharge batteries as they sit in storage. Either way, this difference can make AGM batteries more challenging to recover with many battery chargers on the market and traditional recovery methods (jump-starting).

I think the industry is working very hard right now to find ways to educate both retailers and consumers about AGM technology, because it is quickly taking OE market share from flooded products, especially in start/stop applications and will be doing the same in the aftermarket as well. We have both an online training program for our retail partners, as well as a program that travels the country, bringing the experience to them. We also created a whole host of YouTube videos, which also explains the technology. Some other brands have simply elected to just void warranties on deeply-discharged batteries. We haven't done that and as a result, we end up with a massive quantity of “bad” Optima batteries that are only deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly-recharged.


The above abreviated quote is getting to the heart of my question, which I feel is sufficiently answered. AGM's allow themselves to become more deeply discharged due to their lower internal resistance. What should be done to properly recharge an AGM battery that's set for a number of months unattended? With the Optima chargers; If it states the battery can not be recharged at what point should that battery be relegated to the scrap heap?
I've not had much success with attempting to jump start these vehicles after a number of months. Assuming one follows a proper jump start procedure is it possible these attempts have caused damage to the battery in a deeply discharged state?

[MK69RSSS]

Buy the optima charger. I love mine! I got 7 cars all with optima's

[OptimaJim]

Rhino, I believe I understand we're you're coming from in this thread and understand you don't feel there is a quality issue with our products. However, if you can get the charger to show anything higher than 12 amps, please do snap a photo of it and send it my way. That definitely shouldn't happen and if it does, we'd probably like to get that charger back and take a closer look at it (we might even offer to swap out the battery as well, so we can see them both together). If it were to charge at that high of a rate, it would likely do so at the very beginning of the charge cycle, when it typically is at it's highest in terms of amperage output.

While low internal resistance is an attribute AGM batteries do not share with their flooded counterparts, sulfation is process universal amongst all lead-acid batteries. While the low internal resistance will allow them to be more deeply-discharged than flooded batteries when connected to a draw, they also have a much lower self-discharge rate than flooded batteries. That allows them to be able to hold voltage far longer than a flooded battery when not connected to a draw.

If a battery does become deeply-discharged over several months and someone doesn't have one of our chargers, the parallel charging method described in this video is the best alternative for recovering deeply-discharged batteries. Given that our chargers will recover batteries discharged down to 1.25 volts, if a battery is so discharged that even our chargers can't recharge them, it is probably time to recycle the battery.

I equate jumper cables to being the electrical equivalent of one of those one-gallon emergency gas cans. They can get you out of a tight spot, but shouldn't be relied upon entirely to remedy your situation. If you've run out of gas on the side of the road and drop a gallon in the tank, your next stop will probably be a gas station. If you've deeply-discharged your battery to the point that it needs a jump-start, you should get the battery fully-recharged with a battery charger as soon as possible. When folks don't take that extra step of fully-recharging their battery and get into a cycle of dead batteries and jump-starts, that's when real damage does happen both to the battery and vehicle charging system.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[WS6]

Jim,

I have C-tek Multi US 7002 charger. I have it on snowflake mode which they say is for AGM batteries like Optima. If I put my head right down towards the battery, I can barely hear some hissing or air escaping out of the vents on the battery. Is this normal? It's not loud at all and the battery isn't even warm. I just wanted to check. The battery was purchased today and I'm using the C-tek unit as a tender/maintainer.

Thanks

[OptimaJim]

Hi Trey,

I checked with one of our engineers who is familiar with those units. He indicated that although he did have an incident where he observed one doing the same thing, he didn't determine if it was the battery or charger. Based on the data acquisition he has on those units, he didn't think they were designed to overcharge our batteries. Given the newness of the battery, he would recommend returning it to your original retailer for another unit. The battery may test fine at the retailer, so our customer service team may need to assist you on replacement, so please PM me your contact information. Once you have the new battery, I would encourage you to charge it again in identical fashion, to make sure the problem doesn't persist.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

[WS6]

Thanks Jim. I've PM'd you my info.