SLA charger for 8-10 batteries at once

[stuee]

Hi
Im helping with some community events and setting up some uplights in trees, they are 12v rgb and im running them from 12v 12sla batteries.
There will be 8-10 batteries and to make life simple it would be good to plug all them in at once and then leave them for the week till the next markets week after.

IS there a way to do this other than spending $1000 on 10 separate chargers and using up power points all over the house

Cheers
Stu

 

[Pommie]

Just use one charger that can keep them all charged. I'm assuming all batteries are in parallel.

Mike.

 

[stuee]

Thanks for the reply.
The batts are all separate 1 for each light, then ill remove after the event and take them home, then leave on charge for the following week.
If i make a cable that plugs into them all then and turns into 1 parallel connection for the charger, would that work?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Thanks for the reply.
The batts are all separate 1 for each light, then ill remove after the event and take them home, then leave on charge for the following week.
If i make a cable that plugs into them all then and turns into 1 parallel connection for the charger, would that work?

Unfortunately not, as they will have differing degrees of charge, so will charge and discharge into each other until equalised.

 

[MikeMl]

Unfortunately not, as they will have differing degrees of charge, so will charge and discharge into each other until equalised.

Assuming that they are all the same nominal voltage, then SLAs can be paralleled for charging. Even if one is initially nearly fully charged, and another is mostly discharged. Yes, when first connected, you will be discharging one while charging the other. If you leave the charger connected for a day or two, then at the end of that period, both batteries (or more batteries) will have reached full charge.

The end-of-charge condition for SLAs is terminal voltage reaching ~14.4V and that the current has dropped to less than a few 10s of mA into each battery. The only time charging multiple SLAs in parallel wouldn't work is if one has a shorted-cell!

 

[rfranzk]

Sorry, my link didn't work properly. Try this **broken link removed** For a multiple bay charger. May not fit your budget but worked well for us.

 

[Pommie]

I agree with paralleling the batteries. Once charged thay will act as one battery. Much simpler than multiple chargers.

Mike.