I will preface this post with the statement that I am no engineer, and my understanding of battery technology is amateurish at best. My experience with my GT so far has been great (with the exception of one day where the car briefly illuminated the red Drive system/High-voltage system/Vehicle electrical system; not repeated). Just the same, the posts here and here about the exhaustion of the 12V battery have made me want to have a backup plan. My GT is my DD, but there are times when she will be left unattended for a few weeks. The threads about the terrible delivery experience and the dead GT in the garage contain a couple of recommendations for 12V battery chargers, but none of the posters seem highly confident about their safe application to the GT.
The user manual for the GT is very clear on the specs for a charger to recharge the 12V battery at p. 242-3. The first spec is that charger must have a maximum charging voltage of 14.8 volts. The second spec is that the charger must specifically support LiFepo4 batteries with integrated protective electronics: The third spec is a maximum current of 90 amps. Here’s the excerpt:
There are a variety of battery maintainers/rechargers that are suitable for the full range of lead-acid batteries, including AGM. Some chargers on Amazon claim LiFepo4 compatibility, but the number that actually seem spec’ed for LiFepo4 seems quite small. And many of those suffer from uneven or occasionally severely critical reviews. I found this one which, despite its almost kit-utilitarian appearance, enjoys good ratings and reviews from people who seem to know what they are doing, and it meets the Audi specs:
Granted, at 6A of output, it’s not going to get you going in an emergency, but it seems to me it ought to work with zero risk of damage to the OEM 12V battery. There may be others even better suited. The price on this one is right.
Thoughts & recommendations?
The user manual for the GT is very clear on the specs for a charger to recharge the 12V battery at p. 242-3. The first spec is that charger must have a maximum charging voltage of 14.8 volts. The second spec is that the charger must specifically support LiFepo4 batteries with integrated protective electronics: The third spec is a maximum current of 90 amps. Here’s the excerpt:
There are a variety of battery maintainers/rechargers that are suitable for the full range of lead-acid batteries, including AGM. Some chargers on Amazon claim LiFepo4 compatibility, but the number that actually seem spec’ed for LiFepo4 seems quite small. And many of those suffer from uneven or occasionally severely critical reviews. I found this one which, despite its almost kit-utilitarian appearance, enjoys good ratings and reviews from people who seem to know what they are doing, and it meets the Audi specs:
Granted, at 6A of output, it’s not going to get you going in an emergency, but it seems to me it ought to work with zero risk of damage to the OEM 12V battery. There may be others even better suited. The price on this one is right.
Thoughts & recommendations?