Battery Charger Efficiency and Voltage Behaviour in Vented Lead Acid Batteries in Kenya

Electricity despite being critical is limited to few people in developing countries. This has encouraged the use of battery based systems with unknown efficiencies. Field experimental performance of industrial and Jua Kali battery charger is thus given. The result of voltage recorded during charging shows that there were significant differences (t = 4.775, df = 1, P = 0.0000) in the voltage of batteries charged for both chargers. During discharge it was noted that the batteries charged by the industrial and Jua Kali chargers although having same capacities of 12V, 32 AH took about 70 and 30 minutes respectively to fully discharge to a terminal voltage of 10.5v. This revealed that batteries charged by the Jua Kali charger had acquired less charge due to its weak charging mechanism. It is imperative that such charger be redesigned for better charge delivery