Wha... my battery's dead ??

[Celery]

I wanted to get some tacos this morning and my car won't turn over barely. Popped the hood and saw black terminal clamps then it hit me. I had to clean them before to make 'em work and I forgot to get some new clamps to replace 'em.

Duh!

My 1000 amp 12V battery pack was no help, deader than a doornail and won't recharge. I guess too old then.

Great, now what?

I got on Walmart online and ordered the Stanley 15a-40a boost battery charger (the plug in kind) and a couple of clamps and paid shipping to get 'em here in a few days.

Oh well, such is life.

 

[setishock]

FYI If you run a battery down to less than 50% of it's rated voltage, odds are real bad that it won't come back to it's full capacity. The alarm industry ran in to this problem when major storms knocked out power to any device that had a backup battery. The industry as a whole spend large sums of money replacing abused batteries. Our bitching and moaning about this problem spurred battery makers to come up with new formulas and materials to make a better battery.
The industry still uses lead acid batteries but now they have more ass for longer periods of time and far less prone to being destroyed when deep discharged.
Car batteries have followed that lead but to get a better battery for your car you're going to pay out the nose for it.

 

[Celery]

It's showing over 10 volts but no amps to crank.

 

[cb600fshornet]

Yeah... my motorbike did the same thing, if you put a battery meter to it after charging, the likelihood is, it'll say it's full. But it will be full to a lesser capacity, (sorry for the bad explanation). Batteries that have been flat are never really the same again, always better to buy a new one!

 

[Celery]

I left my running lights on one time and ran the battery completely dead and it recovered.

When you recharge the battery having it say 12-13 volts doesn't mean it's ready. You have to build the amps up.

 

[strollin]

In my RV I use golf cart batteries which have bigger, heavier plates and are designed so that they can be deep discharged and then recharged. Unfortunately, they are larger than a typical car battery and are also only 6V so you need 2 wired in series to get 12V.

 

[Celery]

I'll bet those have lots of amps.

 

[cb600fshornet]

I left my running lights on one time and ran the battery completely dead and it recovered.

When you recharge the battery having it say 12-13 volts doesn't mean it's ready. You have to build the amps up.

When the charge in the battery drop, the lead plates oxidise, the capacity will never be as high as it was. This is certainly the case with lead acid batteries.

 

[Celery]

Got my charger today and the thing is the bee's knee. Totally automatic, it desufinate (when detected), analyze the condition of the battery and go to work regulating the amps.

The 40 amp boost feature is cool. It has a countdown timer for charge up and another count down timer for boosting.

This is pretty much state of the art and only $44.

 

[Celery]

Went got the clamps today and installed them. Turned out the clamps I ordered are on a separate shipment and won't be here til the 12th.

Just glad my car's back on the road, I needed grocery pretty bad.