Odyssey Performance v Extreme series (4 Viewers)

[jht3]

@cuteo100 thanks for all those excerpts. that roughly matches what i saw in the last 24 hours.

i pulled my truck into the garage for some maintenance and checked the battery voltage at the terminals. 12.6V. i've been daily driving it for the last week off the charger

connected a Noco 10Amp charger in AGM mode. within a few minutes the Green light was lit and pulsing slowly, which means something i'm sure. the voltage kept climbing over the next few hours. i saw it peak at out at 14.8V before i went to bed

this morning the battery is sitting at 12.7V and the Green light is solid, no more pulsing.


my takeaway is that all this is fine. Odyssey recommends a 2A trickle charger but says one can't be used for a deep recharge. They actually recommend 40A for deep recharging. For my purposes 10A is more than enough to take a battery up to ~14.7V like they recommend but maintain a battery at the near 100% State of Charge of 12.8V. i didn't see it written down, but i can't imagine you'd want to hold the battery above 14V for days/weeks/months. it does say you can store a battery for 2 years off a charger if charged up to 100% before disconnected. when i don't drive my truck for a few days, i'll connect to the Noco and leave it.

 

[Mrtwooooo]

@cuteo100 thanks for all those excerpts. that roughly matches what i saw in the last 24 hours.

i pulled my truck into the garage for some maintenance and checked the battery voltage at the terminals. 12.6V. i've been daily driving it for the last week off the charger

connected a Noco 10Amp charger in AGM mode. within a few minutes the Green light was lit and pulsing slowly, which means something i'm sure. the voltage kept climbing over the next few hours. i saw it peak at out at 14.8V before i went to bed

this morning the battery is sitting at 12.7V and the Green light is solid, no more pulsing.


my takeaway is that all this is fine. Odyssey recommends a 2A trickle charger but says one can't be used for a deep recharge. They actually recommend 40A for deep recharging. For my purposes 10A is more than enough to take a battery up to ~14.7V like they recommend but maintain a battery at the near 100% State of Charge of 12.8V. i didn't see it written down, but i can't imagine you'd want to hold the battery above 14V for days/weeks/months. it does say you can store a battery for 2 years off a charger if charged up to 100% before disconnected. when i don't drive my truck for a few days, i'll connect to the Noco and leave it.

Did the exact same thing last night with my Noco 10. Within a few minutes the green light was pulsing after having gone up to 14.7 volts. It then went down to 12.86 and slowly worked its way up to 13.30 by the time I went to bed. This morning I checked it and the green light was solid and at 12.98 volts. I'm sure its fine but I don't get why it can't hold it at 13.5 volts.

 

[cuteo100]

I've been monitoring my Noco dual-10A charger also. Since my batteries are brand new, it goes from bulk to absorption and then to float mode very quickly. Along the way, the voltage goes up to 15V for a second then back down to 14.76V and drops to around 13.10V hanging there for a few days. Last night before bed I saw it dropped to around 12.9V, then this morning I caught it back up at 13.10V. It could have went up even higher but I might have missed it. The program is certainly doing something. To really tell the whole story, of course, an inline amp meter must be used and record the whole process.

Note that the recommended 13.5V from Odyssey (and 13.3V from Lifeline) are for float charging state at 77F. If it doesn't need charging during the float mode, it doesn't have to be hanging at 13.5V all of the time. The Odyssey charger does the same thing, based on its manual, leaving the battery at around 13V most of the time.

 

[Honger]

So this thread has me questioning my current system status...

I'm running an Odyssey Extreme 34/78 PC1500. I have a Victron MPPT 75|15 and a 100W solar panel. I run an Engel 45 before/during/after camping trips but generally disconnect it for longer periods of non-camping use.

The battery lists the following charging voltages:
Cyclic Charge Voltage: 14.4-14.8V at 25-degrees C
Float Charge Voltage: 13.5-13.8V at 25-degrees C

The Charge voltages in the Victron are as follows:
Absorption Voltage: 14.70V
Float Voltage: 13.80V
Equalization Voltage: 16.50V (but I have automatic equalization shut off)

As I understand it, the controller will bulk charge the battery to 14.7V at which point it goes into absorption mode... and when the voltage drops to around 13.80V it will go into float mode to roughly maintain that voltage.

But perhaps I should be disconnecting the solar during my periods of non-camping use when the fridge is off. Would you all recommend NOT having the solar constantly hooked up and keeping the battery topped off?

I'm seeing these types of results (using the fridge the last couple days):

 

[spressomon]

If you have parasitic draw (common) then leave it connected. If zero draw then no need.

FWIW, my UZJ100 is always connected to dual bank charger at home to keep dual Odysseys happy.

 

[Dharma Dude]

If you have parasitic draw (common) then leave it connected. If zero draw then no need.

FWIW, my UZJ100 is always connected to dual bank charger at home to keep dual Odysseys happy.

My GX will draw down my Odyssey after about a month or so when parked. Since it's not my DD I, like @spressomon float-charged the battery whenever the GX's parked. Battery is fine after four years. I only put maybe 4000 miles on the GX per year, and in the last two years, almost 0.

 

[Honger]

If you have parasitic draw (common) then leave it connected. If zero draw then no need.

FWIW, my UZJ100 is always connected to dual bank charger at home to keep dual Odysseys happy.

My GX will draw down my Odyssey after about a month or so when parked. Since it's not my DD I, like @spressomon float-charged the battery whenever the GX's parked. Battery is fine after four years. I only put maybe 4000 miles on the GX per year, and in the last two years, almost 0.

Thanks for the feedback gents. My setup has been running like this since May 2020... coming up on two years. I've not observed any issues with it. Being an older truck there isn't too much parasitic load (the digital clock, the MPPT controller, a USB port with LED indicator). But essentially being on a constant trickle charger during the day hasn't seemed to be detrimental. I'll leave it as is. It's proven to be quite robust on several remote trips here in AZ.

 

[e9999]

everything I read suggests that lead batteries are indeed irreversibly damaged by being left to self-discharge for long periods of time but are not harmed by small float currents. So, I'm having my 80 battery on a solar controller 24/7 when not driven (the vast majority of the time).

 

[kwon-offroad]

everything I read suggests that lead batteries are indeed irreversibly damaged by being left to self-discharge for long periods of time but are not harmed by small float currents. So, I'm having my 80 battery on a solar controller 24/7 when not driven (the vast majority of the time).

Second this. Flooded will generally last quite a bit longer if trickled when not in use versus discharged then charged, repeat. Unless there’s some type of build quality issue the flooded on constant trickle should surpass any warranty on them, even if 5 years.

 

[Dharma Dude]

Second this. Flooded will generally last quite a bit longer if trickled when not in use versus discharged then charged, repeat. Unless there’s some type of build quality issue the flooded on constant trickle should surpass any warranty on them, even if 5 years.

But make sure you have the proper "float" charger. Some of the cheap trickle chargers are out-of-spec for float and charge at 14.4 volts which will definitely damage your battery after a long time. The proper float voltage is 13.4-13.8.

 

[Mrtwooooo]

Is there a point where there is corrosion inside the battery from being held at a constant float voltage for long periods? Though I may have read that somewhere.
I have noticed that the Victron Smart Charger will have a float voltage of 13.6V-ish but then have a storage step of the charger is around 13.20V.

 

[Honger]

Well, gonna get to see how robust my Odyssey Extreme is... left the headlights on the other day in my Troopy (really need to get the headlight alarm installed) and over-discharged the battery down to 5.83V. So stupid.

Anyway, my battery charger wouldn't work because it was detecting it as a 6V battery. And in the morning the solar charger kept cutting out... it'd start charging, ramp up wattage, and then go "off". Over and over. So I jumped the truck with my 4Runner and then let it run a bit. Got the charge back up near 12V and then the solar took care of the rest of the charge.

All seems fine now. But man, not the way I want to be treating such an expensive battery.

 

[e9999]

I keep a few (too many) old dumb chargers around for that very reason. Sometimes dumb is better...
Wonder why the solar charger was cutting out.

 

[Honger]

I keep a few (too many) old dumb chargers around for that very reason. Sometimes dumb is better...
Wonder why the solar charger was cutting out.

Yeah, I'm not sure why it was cutting out. Once I had the battery closer to 12V it behaved exactly as it always does. But I figured the way it was behaving wasn't good for either the charger or battery, so opted to jump start.

Need to find an old dumb charger... good call.