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.