Optima battery question

[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.