Battery Charger Poll

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by ChuckDickerson

Could someone please provide some credible documentation to substantiate this please? I have seen this posted on Chief Delphi numerous times but I have never seen manufacturer documentation that states this.

It is my understanding that this is true of old liquid cell batteries so that the electrolyte doesn't spill but modern SLA batteries are safe to use/store/charge in any orientation. I may be entirely incorrect in my understanding which is why I am seeking some actual documentation which I am unable to locate even though I have looked. I may just not know what to search for. Thanks.

Edit: For the record our battery charging station is designed so that the batteries are charges laying down. This has seemed to work perfectly fine for us for more years than I can remember right now but that in no way means we are doing it correctly.

Edit #2: I found a wealth of info about a large number of 12V 18Ah batteries of the size we use in FRC at ATBatt.com. They seem to have manufacturer PDFs and technical documentation for just about all of the various brands of batteries we use. As an example I pulled up the Technical Manual for the PowerSonic PS-12180-NB batteries we have purchased to use this year and while there are pages and pages of information on battery charging I did not find one single mention of battery orientation during charging. I would think that if it was important the manufacturer would make mention of it somewhere.

The vents for these batteries are on the top. When charging, the battery can generate excess gasses that need to vent. Charging upside down will not allow that to happen.