Victron energy Blue Smart 12/7 Manuel page 11

2.6 Adaptive Battery Management
Lead-acid batteries should be charged in three stages, which are [1]
bulk or constant-current charge, [2] absorption or topping charge and
[3] float charge.
Several hours of absorption charge are needed to fully charge the
battery and prevent early failure to sulfation¹.
The relatively high voltage during absorption does however
accelerate aging due to grid corrosion on the positive plates.
Adaptive Battery Management limits corrosion by reducing
absorption time when possible, that is: when charging a battery that
is already (nearly) fully charged.
2.7 Storage mode: less corrosion of the positive plates
Even the lower float charge voltage that follows the absorption period will
cause grid corrosion. It is therefore essential to reduce the charge
voltage even further when the battery remains connected to the charger
during more than 48 hours.
2.8 Reconditioning
A lead-acid battery that has been insufficiently charged or has been left
discharged during days or weeks will deteriorate due to sulfation¹. If
caught in time, sulfation can sometimes be partially reversed by charging
the battery with low current up to a higher voltage.
Remarks:
a) Reconditioning should be applied only occasionally to flat plate VRLA (gel and
AGM) batteries because the resulting gassing will dry out the electrolyte.
b) Cylindrical cell VRLA batteries build more internal pressure before gassing
and will therefore lose less water when subjected to reconditioning. Some
manufacturers of cylindrical cell batteries therefore recommend the
reconditioning setting in case of cyclic application.
c) Reconditioning can be applied to flooded batteries to "equalise" the cells and
to prevent acid stratification.
d) Some battery charger manufactures recommend pulse charging to reverse
sulfation. However, most battery experts agree that there is no conclusive
proof that pulse charging works any better than constant voltage charging.
This is confirmed by our own tests.
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