Battery Charging Guru Required.

[Horsedribble]

This might sound like a silly question but I'm getting conflicting advice.

I just fitted an Odyssey battery to my R1200GS and I want to know what setting to use on my BMW Workshop Battery Charger (Part No 61 1 581).

The charger has two settings;

a: Wet Cell / AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat)
b: Gel Battery.

Now the battery is as AGM type battery, so you'd think it should be "a", but the shop says set it for Gel???? Even though it's NOT a gel battery! Does anyone know what the real score is here and what the difference is between the settings?

Thanks in advance!

 

[D6]

if its sealed, use gel
wet cell charges hi then low as it charges,
gel constant trickles or charges low then higher as the battery builds power.
use wet setting on the wrong battery and you feck it

 

[RPilot]

.

ODYSSEY is certainly declared as AGM type technology, hence AGM setting recommended

.

 

[Zigo]

Rpilot is correct. Use setting (a) for the Odyssey. In fact the AGM battery is wet in the sense that it contains liquid electrolyte that is 100% absorbed by a special glass mat. The reason for the gel setting (b) is that gel batteries have to be charged at a lower rate. Too high charging current might cause small gas pockets or bubbles in the gel, thus shortening the lifespan of the battery.

 

[Horsedribble]

Thanks Guys.

Sorry I've been a little while getting back.

I think I will go with the AGM setting. At least that way I can say I was following the manufacturers instructions if anything does go wrong. It seems from the technical data supplied with the battery that they're fairly resilient to different charging methods as long as the charge voltage never exceeds 15v. I'll just keep an eye on that until i'm confident it's working correctly.

Thanks again!

 

[Fredb51]

You should be fine with the AGM setting, but FWIW aside from the chargers Odyssey themselves supply, the range that seems to be most compatible with their batteries are the C-Tek products.

 

[RSavage]

FWIW Motorworks told me that I should be using a C-TEK charger for my Odyssey battery when I complained that the Optimate wasn't keeping it charged.

Richard