Battery questions, charging???? Need help for trip tomorrow!! :)

[wareagle83]

Hey guys, I am heading out to the lake tomorrow with my old "new to me" jon boat and the guy I bought it from threw in a DieHard deep cycle marine battery. He only used it once last year and I assume it's been sitting since then. The charger that I found in the garage I'm hoping will work to atleast get it charged until I can buy a nice charger for a deep cycle battery. My question is I took off the top caps or whatever they are called and filled with distilled water, how much or how high do I fill? And these should be left off while charging correct?? The charger I'm using is an Exide 12volt 6/2 amp manual battery charger. Will this work for tonight?? Also, it has a gauge on it numbered from 10 on the left side to 0 on the right side. An empty battery is above the 10 and a full battery is above the 0. This confuses me. Also while charging you can set it to charge with 6 or 2. It is reading right about the number 6 on 6 amp, but goes over to 3 when on the 2 amp setting.  Why would it show under half charged on 6 amp and over half charged when switched to 2 amp setting? I'm confused???

[Wayne P.]

You will be lucky if the battery will charge at all. BUT, if the fluid level is above all the plates, don't add water until after you charge. Then fill to the split ring level about 1/2" below the battery top. If the plates are dry, you can add some water to cove the plates ( probably won't do any good). Then set your charger to 6 amps and hope for the best. IF you are lucky, the charge meter will be sitting on 0 in the morning. If the meter has dropped to any reading less than what it was when you hooked it up, you may get some run time, but don't go far, you might have to row back.

It doesn't matter about the battery caps whether they are off or on.

[wareagle83]

So your saying the battery may not charge at all because it sat for awhile??  O is it mainly my charger that is the problem??

[Way2slow]

Take a good paddle with you, you're gonna need it.

I also doubt there's anything wrong with the charger.  The meter is only showing the current it's putting into the battery.  As the battery gains charge, the meter will gradually fall back toward zero.

[wareagle83]

Well thats what I'm trying to understand here.  When the switch is set to 6 amps it shows it way less charged than when the switch is on 2 amps.  It shows it about 3/4 of the way to full on 2 amps.  This electrical stuff is not my forte'   >

[Way2slow]

Maybe you can get one of the experts to explain, I don't know anything about them either so I don't get into battery/charger discussions.

Like I said though, take a good paddle and don't plan to go very far just to be on the safe side.

[mobster]

Did the battery have any water in it...?

[Wayne P.]

Forget about what the meter shows with the two different settings it is just a relative indication of the charging rate and not the amount of voltage of the battery. If the meter measured the battery condition, it would indicate something when you hook up the leads before you plug in the A/C cord-it doesn't. The most important thing you need is the max amount of amp for charging in the shortest amount of time. When/if it gets to 0 after a few hours, you are OK. That just means that the voltage of the battery has reached the output voltage of the charger and doesn't need to continue charging. From your discription of the battery, I would guess that it's life is ended or almost ended. For long battery life, it has to be kept fully charged at all times and recharged to full charge as soon as possible after a discharge of any amount.

If your battery is a "healthy" 100 amp hour size and it is 1/2 discharged, it will take almost 9 hours to recover to full charge with the 6 amp setting. You can triple that time if you set it to 2 amps.

[Splat]

OK to add to this.

The caps don't need to be off when you charge it. They will vent properly when they are on tight.

Also when you remove the vent caps there will be little "fingers" of plastic from the top part of the battery that extend down into the battery and will stop some point above the plates. You'll want to add water until the water level is to the bottom of these little "fingers"

Bill