Charging Question

[Anonymous]

I started charging my dead battery on a an old charger today.
Now the quality of this charger is questionable it was purchased by my grandfather some 10-15yrs ago. The one light on it doesn't work but there is power going through it to the battery. and it does give me a reading.
After about an hour on the charger the battery started making a faint crackling noise. (rice krispieish) :? As i have never had to charge a battery before i have no idea if this is old news or the charger is ready for the trash heap.
The battery was new in Oct, i stored it inside over the winter and the fluid levels are within the range

[focus frenzy]

how many amps does the charger make and or what was it set to?

anything above 5amps is going to high.
if it was a quite low sizzle hiss sound, that would be it trying to out gas, you did remove the caps didn't you?
as a battery charges it produces hydrogen and at a high rate it will produce alot of hydrogen.

[Anonymous]

Well ya learn somthing new everyday

The Charger is 6 amps though.
Is this going to totally kill my battery if i use it???

[Anonymous]

Too much current can overheat your battery, warp the plates, and in general reduce its ability to hold a charge. You'd be better off picking up a 1 or 2 amp charger. A manual one is fine, but the automatic battery tender types are nice, but cost a little more.

Sam

Well ya learn somthing new everyday

The Charger is 6 amps though.
Is this going to totally kill my battery if i use it???

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info guys

[Anonymous]

Battery Charger

I have an old 12V/6A battery charger that I have used for years to charge motorcycle batteries. The trick is to limit the charging current. The charging current is controlled by the internal resistance of the battery. The flater the battery the lower the internal resistance hence the more current the charger will supply. If you still want to use the old charger just insert a resistance in series with one of the leads. I use a 1.2 ohm 10 watt resistor. 20 or so feet of lamp cord would do the same thing. You would need to experiment here to get a reading on your ammeter at or below the recommended charge rate for your battery. (Approx. 1/10 of the battery's amp/hour rating.) This is 1.4 amps for my GS850 battery.

[wizard]

I just got a real sweet tender for about $15 from Northern Tools. The "Rice Krispies" sound is the Hydrogen chemically boiling away from the battery plates. Slow charge is the way to go.