A common scenario with some applications is not having the opportunity to charge the batteries of your vehicle/machine for a long period of time. This prevents the charger from going through a full charge cycle, especially if the batteries have been deeply discharged.

It’s important to allow the charger to complete a full charge cycle as our charge profiles have three stages (Bulk, Absorption and Finish stage). The finish stage is very important as it tops up the battery cells by performing precision overcharging to make sure the battery cells are completely charged.

One solution for the lack of time for charging is to utilize the short periods of machine inactivity to perform short charging events. This is done to reduce the time the charge profile spends during the first two stages, therefore reducing overall charging time.

For example: If you were to use the machine for 1-2 hours and you know you have an hour before you use the machine again, we recommend that you charge the battery during this idle period. This is more beneficial than leaving the charging time until the end of the day/shift. Short charging period can aid in maintaining battery health.

It’s not so beneficial if you have short charging period of 5 minutes, for example. This does not allow enough time to return energy back to the battery.

Whatever the pattern of usage is, we strongly recommend allowing the charge to complete a full, uninterrupted charge cycle as often as possible. The benefits of opportunity charging vary with each usage pattern. Consultation with the application OEM is always recommended for their best practices.