"Reginald P. Smithers III" [email protected] wrote in
message ...
Eisboch wrote:
"John H." wrote in message
...
I'm keeping the battery from the new boat in the garage so I can put a
charger on it every so often during the winter. The battery is a
Nautilus
Gold Marine Deep Cycle, NG-27.

Yesterday I attempted to charge the battery with an automatic charger
set
at 2 amps, 12 volt, deep cycle setting. The little green light began
blinking as though all was going well.

About 24 hours later, I noticed the little red light had come on,
indicating I should check the battery. I disconnected everything.

I'm thinking that 2 amps is not enough to charge the battery, and that I
should try it at 10 amps. But, I don't want to damage a brand new, never
used battery!

Ideas anyone?

If your charger is a "smart charger" meaning it will automatically go
through a 3 stage charging process, the battery may be too low initially
and the smart charger thinks there is a problem. It's a characteristic
of the charger.
A way to get around this is to initially use an old fashioned, voltage
only charger to bring the battery up to a level where the smart charger
can do it's thing.

Other possibilities is having the charger set for the wrong type of
battery. Many have settings for regular lead-acid, deep cycle, AGM, etc.

This is one reason I leave a good, "float" type maintainer on the battery
all winter, not to be confused with a "trickle" charger.

Eisboch




If I am not mistaken, the smart charger doesn't come on until the battery
has lost at least 20% of it's charge.


It also won't come on if the battery has dropped below a certain voltage
representing an approximate 80 percent discharge. It thinks the battery is
shot or has one or more dead cells. My experience has been that if you
think the battery is still good, hook it up to an old fashioned
conventional charger (non-smart) for about 15 minutes, then try the smart
charger again. Usually it works.

Eisboch