Re: Unsmoothed car battery charger - is it crap?

Right - thanks for that. In the UK Optima cost about 4 times a decent other make for cars - so to me are basically a con. Unless they lasted 4 times as long - and backed it up with a warranty.

These are sold for off road use where you may roll the vehicle, and race cars for the lower weight. They are more expensive than some batteries, but the conventional types have gone sky high, as well.

Interstate claims they can be installed upside down so if they vent, it will cause lots of problems.

My 2001 truck battery is the original. Why do I care if it'll last four times longer?

Talking about UK prices they're even more sky high. And are advertised here as being a viable alternative for ordinary car use. But they're not. As regards the weight thing they may be lower weight - but they are also lower capacity in terms of A/hr for all but the smallest cars.

It's the same way here.

They are backed by a warranty, but I don't think they have a great advantage for the typical driver. Seems like they'd be a good buy for a serious 4x4 though, not my cup of tea but some of those guys do some pretty crazy stuff, angles and water submersion that would be hard on an ordinary automotive battery.

I've seen banks of them used in a few electric car conversions as well.

Indeed - that sort of life isn't uncommon these days for a quality battery. Which makes Optima's claims even more ludicrous.

Gel electrolyte batteries use gel electrolyte,

There are wet batteries marketed as sealed. These typically have no user accessable ports to access the electrolyte, but will still leak if inverted etc..

"zero-maintenance" car batteries often have the electolyte ports under the label.

yeah they have a catylist that oxidises most of the free hydrogen back to water. as long as you don't overheat them they can tolerate some overcharging.