Charger pr0n: NOCO Genius10 battery - measured data & review

[ShadowsPapa]

It's not quite the same, unless the charger is small. A standard bulk-absorption 10A charger will bring a car battery (used normally, not deliberately discharged) up to 14.4V in seconds, ending the bulk stage. Most of the charging will then happen in absorption at 14.4V. A 1A charger might supply 1A (bulk) for awhile before getting the voltage up to 14.4V. The Noco gives you the best of both worlds, in theory.

I choose my amperage based on current battery level.
A couple of chargers have 3 amperage choices,
for normal routine used to keep mine topped up, the BatteryMinder 1500 works well (1.5 amps but if it's really low, it can take a day or two, depending on battery)
It also tops off at 14.4 volts and is not for lithium batteries.

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[Flanders]

I gave the Noco Genius 10 another shot, hoping to see it output more than 3.2% of its rated current in my normal use. Spoiler: It didn't.

This time the JT had been parked for 8 full days since last driven, untouched except to open the hood on day 5. I expected the Noco would charge at 3.3A or higher for a few minutes, then spend quite awhile at 1.4A before dropping to 0.32A maintenance.

The Noco tested currents up to 7.2A but settled on 0.32A.

I turned it off in disgust after 13 minutes and charged it with a power supply. When the power supply takes over, it's evident that the Genius 10 missed the chance to charge effectively.

The battery accepted 2.0Ah in the first hour, without going over 14.4V.

The Noco Genius 10 would have taken 6 hours to deliver that charge.

After 2 hours, without ever exceeding 3.2A or 14.40V, the power supply has put nearly 3Ah through the battery.

That would be 9 bowls of your cereal hours of charging for the Noco Genius 10.

 

[J Sierra]

Smart charger with manual mode.

 

[Flanders]

Can the Noco Genius 10, with its 0.32A minimum charging current, every fully charge a smaller aging battery? I'm used to seeing current taper down to one-tenth of that, 0.03A, or lower, in constant voltage charging.

With that question in mind, I gave the Noco Genius 10 one more chance before returning it to its owner. This is a 2013 Honda with a 5-year-old maintenance-free flooded lead acid battery. It's a small battery, about 30Ah.

The Hondas of that era have two alternator modes. Low is around 12.6V and high is ~14.4V. It seems to use the low setting most of the time, except for the first few minutes after starting or when there's a significant electrical load. Consequently, the 2013 tends to undercharge, and the battery takes 3-4Ah of charge every few weeks, when I remember to charge it.

The car had been driven normally since last charged two weeks before and was warm from just being driven. The Noco was at room temperature and set for regular 12V.

The Noco Genius 10 again settled on 0.32A.

As in the prior cases, the battery clearly would have accepted 1.33A for awhile. Noco has taken a conservative approach. Who buys a 10A charger expecting it to behave like a one-third amp trickle charger?

The cycle finally completed after about 8 hours.

The first re-up was about 2 hours later, followed by three more at shrinking intervals.

Four more re-ups. Note the different time scale.

After 20 hours and 8 re-ups, the Noco had still not charged the battery completely. It claimed to. The light was solid green when I disconnected it.

16 hours with a Victron Blue Smart IP22 in power supply mode at 13.6V put another 1.6Ah through it. Maybe half of that is net charge to the battery, but it's still 2-3% of capacity.

Not only did the Noco Genius 10 fail to fully charge the battery, it was not on a pace to ever get there. The average charging current after the light first went solid green was around 33mA (cycling on for 4 minutes at 0.32A and off for 35). The quiescent draw with the hood latch open is 28mA.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Can the Noco Genius 10, with its 0.32A minimum charging current, every fully charge a smaller aging battery? I'm used to seeing current taper down to one-tenth of that, 0.03A, or lower, in constant voltage charging.

With that question in mind, I gave the Noco Genius 10 one more chance before returning it to its owner. This is a 2013 Honda with a 5-year-old maintenance-free flooded lead acid battery. It's a small battery, about 30Ah.

The Hondas of that era have two alternator modes. Low is around 12.6V and high is ~14.4V. It seems to use the low setting most of the time, except for the first few minutes after starting or when there's a significant electrical load. Consequently, the 2013 tends to undercharge, and the battery takes 3-4Ah of charge every few weeks, when I remember to charge it.

The car had been driven normally since last charged two weeks before and was warm from just being driven. The Noco was at room temperature and set for regular 12V.

The Noco Genius 10 again settled on 0.32A.

As in the prior cases, the battery clearly would have accepted 1.33A for awhile. Noco has taken a conservative approach. Who buys a 10A charger expecting it to behave like a one-third amp trickle charger?

The cycle finally completed after about 8 hours.

The first re-up was about 2 hours later, followed by three more at shrinking intervals.

Four more re-ups. Note the different time scale.

After 20 hours and 8 re-ups, the Noco had still not charged the battery completely. It claimed to. The light was solid green when I disconnected it.

16 hours with a Victron Blue Smart IP22 in power supply mode at 13.6V put another 1.6Ah through it. Maybe half of that is net charge to the battery, but it's still 2-3% of capacity.

Not only did the Noco Genius 10 fail to fully charge the battery, it was not on a pace to ever get there. The average charging current after the light first went solid green was around 33mA (cycling on for 4 minutes at 0.32A and off for 35). The quiescent draw with the hood latch open is 28mA.

Never truly fully charging batteries is another reason for shorter battery life and why you still see "but I used my NOCO excellent charger that all of the Jeep guys say is the god of chargers and always works perfect and my battery still lost capacity and failed early".
Peer approval - question it and get ripped apart - because all of the best known people on forums use something.

 

[Hootbro]

With that question in mind, I gave the Noco Genius 10 one more chance before returning it to its owner. This is a 2013 Honda with a 5-year-old maintenance-free flooded lead acid battery. It's a small battery, about 30Ah.

What about the battery under test electrolyte level? Is it a fair test to be expecting a full charge on a 5 year old battery if the part of the plates are exposed?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

What about the battery under test electrolyte level? Is it a fair test to be expecting a full charge on a 5 year old battery if the part of the plates are exposed?

Should a properly charged AGM battery have part of the plates exposed?

 

[Hootbro]

Should a properly charged AGM battery have part of the plates exposed?

My reply was to his last stated test of a flooded lead acid battery and where I was coming from. If the plates are partial exposed and dry, I would think one would never get back to a 100% SOC without reconditioning and servicing the electrolyte level with distilled water.

As to AGM, my understanding is they should be wet like a damp sponge but even they will go dry over time. I have seen videos of people recovering AGM's with partial dried glass mat material and reconditioned with like 10cc of distilled water per cell to rehydrate the glass mat material and then do a voltage draw down and recharge like X2 and bring them pretty much back to 100% of rated SOC.

Part of me thinks the NOCO is doing what it is suppose to do if the battery is not 100% serviced. This is also assuming a de-sulfation has been done.

 

[Flanders]

What about the battery under test electrolyte level? Is it a fair test to be expecting a full charge on a 5 year old battery if the part of the plates are exposed?

It's a maintenance free design. No fill caps. This battery regularly receives a full charge. Not a Noco solid green light full charge, a real one.

The only way to know that a battery is done charging when you can't access the electrolyte is to hold it at constant voltage until current stops falling, or at constant current until voltage stops rising.

Th battery accepted a few percent more charge after I switched chargers. It took 200mA at first, falling below 45mA over 36 hours at 13.60V float.

Part of me thinks the NOCO is doing what it is suppose to do if the battery is not 100% serviced. This is also assuming a de-sulfation has been done.

The Noco did exactly the same thing it did in every previous run: Charge at 0.32A until voltage rises to its cutoff, then turn off and wait until it falls below 12.88V. Repeat indefinitely.

It didn't fully charge my JT on the first attempt either. I stopped it after 16 hours and then put another 500mAh through it in a few hours at constant 13.80V.

I gave the Noco 3 days for the second run on the JT and got near a full charge. I should hope so, because it pulled it up over 15V at least 75 times over those 3 days.

It will never fully charge this battery in regular 12V mode because the cutoff is about 0.25V lower than AGM mode, and at 0.32A the battery voltage rises rapidly to the cutoff then the Noco shuts off. Typical of aging batteries, and particularly smaller ones. The only way to get a full charge is a long constant voltage float. Noco won't do that.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

It's a maintenance free design. No fill caps. This battery regularly receives a full charge. Not a Noco solid green light full charge, a real one.

The only way to know that a battery is done charging when you can't access the electrolyte is to hold it at constant voltage until current stops falling, or at constant current until voltage stops rising.

Th battery accepted a few percent more charge after I switched chargers. It took 200mA at first, falling below 45mA over 36 hours at 13.60V float.



The Noco did exactly the same thing it did in every previous run: Charge at 0.32A until voltage rises to its cutoff, then turn off and wait until it falls below 12.88V. Repeat indefinitely.

It didn't fully charge my JT on the first attempt either. I stopped it after 16 hours and then put another 500mAh through it in a few hours at constant 13.80V.

I gave the Noco 3 days for the second run on the JT and got near a full charge. I should hope so, because it pulled it up over 15V at least 75 times over those 3 days.

It will never fully charge this battery in regular 12V mode because the cutoff is about 0.25V lower than AGM mode, and at 0.32A the battery voltage rises rapidly to the cutoff then the Noco shuts off. Typical of aging batteries, and particularly smaller ones. The only way to get a full charge is a long constant voltage float. Noco won't do that.

I should check the BatteryMINDER pattern................. it's always done a good job for me.
After using it I've checked and found my batteries to be sitting at 12.8 volts and the system reacted by showing 13.0 volts in the cluster while driving.

 

[Flanders]

Never truly fully charging batteries is another reason for shorter battery life and why you still see "but I used my NOCO excellent charger that all of the Jeep guys say is the god of chargers and always works perfect and my battery still lost capacity and failed early".
Peer approval - question it and get ripped apart - because all of the best known people on forums use something.

IMO it's a one-size-fits all device that doesn't fit anyone well.

For maintaining a lead acid battery in a car that tends to undercharge or isn't driven often, the Genius 10 is an expensive one-third amp trickle charger that may not ever fully charge the battery.

Same goes for the guy who appears every couple of weeks, with ESS not working and battery always at 14.4V. That battery won't accept anywhere near 5 amps. If it would, just driving it for a few hours would resolve the issue.

When I do have a lead acid battery that will accept 10A for long enough to matter, 30A would be better.

And the only reason to charge a 300Ah LiFePO4 at 10A is because you can't supply 100A.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

When I do have a lead acid battery that will accept 10A for long enough to matter, 30A would be better.

That's why I have chargers all the way from 1.5 to 20 amps.........

I charged the batteries in my jt via the trailer plug using my CTEK.
Drove it yesterday, it started at 14.2 - LOW for this time of year and compared to what it's been doing when not charging it, and settled to 12.9 to 13.0 for most of a 30 minute trip.
I didn't check the voltage at the batteries, but at least the JT's systems thought life was good.

 

[Rusty PW]

Just got done driving 1,800 miles in 3 days. My ESS finally started working today. Seen voltages from 12.1 to 15.1 on the trip. Guess my batteries are charged.

 

[DailyDrivenTJ]

Thank you for the detailed report.

I have a failed Genius 10. I kept it outside in element charging my junk. It was under a cover but not fully away from the element. I kept it thinking it would float charge the battery.

Eventually the charger stopped charging, and battery died. I thought maybe the water ingress caused it to fail. But the unit supposed to be water resistant and there has been no standing water around it or direct water exposure to rain. But I live in PNW where it stays very wet outside for 7 months out of the year.

I contacted them for warranty support and I remember it being more hassle than what it is worth.

Bought another one during Black Friday just so I can have a charger that I can hook it up and forget.

I told myself would not pay full price on it and this report definitely validated my gut feeling.

On the other hand, I have been using their onboard 2D charger and have it hooked up on my other off-road rigs and they stay onboard. Batteries been alive past 3-4 years or so.

These vehicles sit outside.

That reminds me. How do you all utilize desulfation/repair mode?

 

[Flanders]

That reminds me. How do you all utilize desulfation/repair mode?

IMO, these things are a last resort before recycling the battery. Any mode that's trying to do something that ordinary charging can't is going to be hard on a battery.

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