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Battery

2K views 28 replies 13 participants last post by  Outdoor2daCore 
#1 ·
I left my trickle charger on one of my batteries for about a week and a half. I always thought two things....One it would shut off before it hurt the battery because it has an automatic shut off or two... the trickle charger is so low voltage that it could be kept on for a long time. I guess that is wrong cause it was dead as a door nail and will not take a charge now. Battery was only 2 years old!!!!!
 
#7 ·
If a maintenance free battery has been allowed to drain to a point that hooking it up to a charger gets absolutely no connection, like you had the cables connected to a piece of wood, the battery is not necessarily junk.

There is a trick that I've learned that has resurrected several and avoided an unnecessary expense of a trade in.

Take a known good battery and set adjacent to the issue battery. Hook up some fairly beefy wires, like 6 or 8 gauge, or just use jumper cables, + / +, - / -, then hook your charger to the known good battery.



The charger will sense the good battery as needing a charge and will begin charging.

It may take overnight, but once the failing battery starts taking a charge again, just connect as normal till fully charged.

As always, use caution about any flamables nearby, keep rags, paper or wood away. Wires may get hot during charging. Always a good idea to monitor for an hour or so before leaving unattended.

It should fix your battery issue once you get your charger problem corrected.
 

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#5 ·
Yes, use a digital volt meter. See if the volts are what the charger should be putting out. Also, most low/dead batteries will not come back up to a full charge using a trickle charge. You want 10 amps just to charge a marine at minimum.
Using a digital volt meter you can also tell a lot about a batteries condition. 12.54 volts is a about the lowest voltage a "good" battery will hold after sitting/soaking for 8 hrs no charger hooked up. Once you see 12.4 volts on a soaked battery, typically the plates are starting to sulfate. And the battery will be getting worst....time to get a new one unless it is the end of the season.
 
#8 ·
Thats good stuff!! Thanks I will try that. So weird though... The battery seemed good. It wasnt all that low. I had just put it on to top it off after I charged up my trolling batteries... and now DEAD!
 
#13 ·
Good place locally for batteries, Deka and others, and chargers/maintainers (Genius) is just south of Hall Rd. (M59) on the east side of Mound in Sterling Heights. I think it's called either BatteryShack or BatteriesShack.
 
#15 ·
Awww, come on guys, it's so simple. Maybe you need a refresher course. Hey! It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads. And I'm gonna need 'bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State.
 
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#28 ·
I remember reading this thread and I went to double check my ice fishing batteries they are 12v 7-9 amp batteries and two were totally dead wouldn’t even register to take a charge..... and one was only a year old. Turned out my son 3 yo turned on my electric auger and left it on as kids like to push buttons and hit switches. So I hooked one of the good batteries up to it in parallel for a few hours and came back and it took some of the life from one of the good batteries and is now on the charge. Basically took a totally dead battery and gave it new life and it’s now charging like it should. I’ve got the other totally dead one now hooked up to a good one in parallel and hopefully it brings it back to life as well. I threw one out a few years ago that was totally dead and relatively new, makes me think it mighta not been totally gone as well. Just an FYI to anyone thinking they may have a totally dead battery that is salvageable. Finger crossed on the 4th!!
 
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