Someone gave me an old car battery charger.
6 volts 10A and 12 volts 2A and 10A, determined by a slide switch.A friend brings over a dead 12v battery.
On the charger, on 10A, it charges at 9amps. On 2A, it charges at 7 amps.
Based on the meter on the charger.
What does it mean to be a 2 amp charger if it charges at 7 amps?
After an hour the charging rate dropped to 6 amps on the 10A setting, and then it was 5 amps on the 2A setting.
Sounds like the battery has had it or if you leave on the 10 amp setting for 24 hours and it comes down more it might be salvageable...(might). It could be borderline. Is there water in all the cells? One dry cell is not good. Top them up with distilled water and see what happens. I've had successes and lots of failures. The longer they stay dead before charging then the odds are against you. ====
I'd take the battery off the charger and use a multimeter to see if the terminal voltage was over 11.5. I'd let the battery sit overnight and see if it was still over 11.5. Why fool with a battery if a cell is shorted?
If the voltage was good, I'd use the multimeter to check the charging current. If it really charges a good battery at 7 amps on the 2 amp setting, that would explain why someone gave it away. I'd check the charging voltage because the charger could damage batteries if it's too high.
Meter should have two scales, one for 6V and one for 12V. No?
It may have two scales, but I would not think for the 6/12 volt but more for the 10 and 2 amps.
Correct logic.
Also: For the sake of economy I doubt the mfg would have two scales.
More than likely it's a cheap, non-regulated charger. On an over-discharged battery, I'd believe the initial output on the 2amp setting might be high.
If it does not eventually taper down. the battery indeed could have a shorted cell.
Easy enough to check:
After the charger has run a while... turn it off and let any surface charge dissipate.
If the battery voltage is about 10.5 no need to go further...dead cell
One could investigate further by putting on safety glass, removing the caps and seeing if perhaps the electrolyte in one of the cells is all black.
Could be one shorted cell throwing off current reading. I always use hydrometer when checking battery.
It means the battery is very low on charge. IDK exactly how they come up with those ratings, but I would suspect that it's rated at putting out 2A at a particular charging voltage. If the battery is very low, or bad, it will present a bigger load, the charging voltage will be lower, and the current higher. I see that on my old Sears charger all the time. If it's on 2 or
10A, on either, if the battery is very low, it will initially charge at a much higher current. After 5 or 10 mins, it starts dropping down as the battery charges.
If you're having the same thing, Trader, there's no point in my pursuing the question anymore. And I'll figure the charger is good enough.
To everyone, yes the battery was very much discharged. I knew that. The hydrometer shoed 4 cells in the red (semi-cheap hydrometer, no number assigned to red) and the other 2 very close to the red. However the battery's voltage was above 12.6 anyhow. (well maybe I didn't wait until the "surface charge" dissipated, like Philo said to do. But then the owner came and took the battery away. He has a charger he thought wasn't working. This is for the truck he rarely drivesl, but I guess he wanted to drive it the day he got the battery.)
Thanks, and thanks all.
I quit fooling with hydrometers decades ago. In some batteries, it's hard to get to the electrolyte. Gas bubbles, as in a glass of ginger ale, will cause false readings.
Before charging, voltage should tell you the state of charge and if all cells are working. Headlights will show how the battery handles a load of a few amps. It's also a way to check the state of charge if a battery has recently been on a charger. Turn the lights on 15 seconds, then off.
In my experience, a deeply discharged battery charges slowly at first because the electrolyte is weak.
Most DMMs will measure 10A DC. That's a way to check the gauge on the charger.
I didn't have those problems with this battery.
??
It was already out of the car.
Again, out of the car.
Thanks.
Every charger I've had has been like that. Unless you want to pay bigger bucks for a charger with true constant current regulation I think what you have is all you can expect.
How do you know the red readings were correct? You said it was a dead battery. I would have expected a dead battery to draw more current after an hour, not less.
I remember another thing that can throw a hydrometer off. Sulfuric acid settles when a battery sits; that's why turning the lights on for a few seconds can improve starting power. If a battery has been sitting a long time, the hydrometer may sample the watery stuff at the top.
I know a situation where a hygrometer can be useful. After you charge a battery and give any tiny bubbles time to clear out, a hydrometer can tell you the condition of each cell.
The exact voltage depends on the temperature and the kind of battery. At 60 F, a normal car battery should show 12.63V at 100%, 12.43 at 75%,
12.22 at 50%, 12.04 at 25%, and 11.87 discharged. A lower reading would show one or more shorted cells. (I use a lithium coin cell to calibrate my meters. There are better voltage standards, but I don't have one now.)Another load could be clipped to the battery. In my case, I would have disconnected the ground from the battery in my car and used jumpers to connect the test battery to the car.
I have similar 2A/10A charger and on mine the meter does not have two different scales for 2A and 10A.
On mine, if it's set for 10A it charges more quickly but it also shuts down the charging earlier. At the 10A rate the green LED indicating fully charged turns on but if I then switch it to 2A it charges some more.
As to voltage, a fully charged lead acid battery, with no load, will be
2.3V per cell x 6 cells = 13.8V. Once it's under load, it's 2.1V/cell or 12.6V. If you have a shorted cell (or more than one shorted cell) it's easy to check because under noload the voltage will be lowered by the number of shorted cells x 2.3V.An alternator/rectifier/voltage regulator, or battery charger, needs to put out 14.4-14.8V to properly charge a car battery. While people call car batteries "12 volts," they are not 12 volts except under load where they are between 12V and 12.6V.
An article entitled is "Car Batteries Are Not 12 Volts" is available at .
A battery that has just been on a charger or come in from driving may well read 13.8 volts, but it will settle down over a period of hours. A brief load helps it settle faster.
The article points out that it's hard to know the best voltage for an automobile regulator. They all seem to be temperature compensated these days, providing more voltage for a cooler battery. That helps.
A battery used for for a couple of 10-minute drives a day would probably last longer with more charging voltage. A battery on the interstate 10 hours a day would probably last longer with less voltage. How can a car manufacturer predict your driving habits?
I once owned a charger with a switch for conventional or maintenance-free batteries. The maintenance-free does better with more charging voltage.
In the aircraft world they are referred to as a 14 volt system, with
12 cell battery systems referred to as 28 volt.As for the chargers - a "decent"charger limits the charge current as well as the voltage, so a 2 amp charger will not put out over 2 amps into the battery for trickle charging and will limit the voltage to
14.4 so it will never boil a battery dry.. Most chargers out there fall short of "decent" but there are more and more "microprocessor controlled" 3 stage chargers on the market for approaching an affordable price.Some will test the battery for shorted cells, indicate the failure, and refuse to charge a defective battery.
I've heard that totally dead batteries may draw less current. But every auto battery I've even tried to charge, the current is initially higher, then starts coming down in 5 or 10 mins. The more drained it was, the higher the current it pulled from the charger. But then I haven't had one that was like connected to a load to totally drain it down to absolute zero.
Exactly. A fully charged batter is around the 12.6V that you state. When it's being charged or right after it's been charged, then it will be temporarily higher, but that higher level is temporary and not necessary for it to be fully charged. To bleed off that excess, you can just put on the headlights for a minute, then measure the voltage.
BMW has a solution. Their new cars now have some sophisticated charging/monitoring system that closely controls the battery. A real nice feature of this for the consumer is that if you replace the battery, you have to go to the dealer to have the new battery registered into the car computer. I'm sure this is really about making those batteries work better and not making money for the stealerships, by leading you to them to buy their batteries, right?
If the lights will glow but the engine won't turn over, I'd expect the charge to start slow. If a motorcycle or riding mower had been left in a shed for months, I'd expect the charge to start slow. In that case, stratification of the electrolyte might be part of the problem.
I like the AGM battery I put in my mower. It stays perky over the winter because the electrolyte doesn't stratify and self-discharge is very low.
I like that! I haven't even been able to find out if my Walmart battery is low-maintenance or maintenance-free. The cell caps can be removed, but that doesn't prove it's not maintenance-free.
I'm very curious about the specifics because after charging, it may take
48 hours to come down to a "proper" voltage.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.