[DeTomaso] charging an Optima Battery help

[Thomas Tornblom]

JJD1010 at aol.com skrev:
> Another stranded Pantera story, it seems the Pantera sat too long and  there 
> isn't enough juice to start the car. I attached my charger and plugged it  in 
> on the 12V setting. The charger acted really funny and made noise, sort of a  
> humm. The gauge on the charger would peg all the way up and then after several 
>  seconds all the way down. It kept going all the way up and all the way down  
> several times and I turned it off. 
>  
> Then I switched the charger to 6V, turned it back on and it is acting  normal 
> and reading about 2/3 the way up. 
>  
> Will an Optima charge at 6V? 
>  
> Any Ideas why the 12V charge was acting so strange?

Have you connected the charger + to + and - to - ?

Is the battery disconnected from the car?

If the battery is totally drained, then setting the charger to 12V may 
overload the charger (hum and gauge pegged) until a thermo fuse breaks 
(gauge goes to zero, hum stops). When the fuse cools, the cycle repeats.

Setting the charger to 6V in such a situation is good, which makes the 
battery come off 0V gently. The gauge will hopefully relatively quickly 
go to 0, which is the time you switch it back to 12V.

This is assuming you have disconnected the battery from the car. If not, 
then there can be something in the car that shorts out the battery and 
charger.

I once was having a chevy van repainted, and after a few days the 
painter called me and said they had parked it with the key in ACC, where 
the fan was turning at slow speed without anyone noticing.

He said he had problems attaching the carger, the fuse would break and 
the gauge peg. I told him to disconnect the battery from the car, and he 
said it would take a charge then.

He later called me and said he had lots of sparks when he tried to 
attach the battery to the car again. It sounded as a diode problem in 
the alternator, so I told him to disconnect the alternator, and that 
fixed the sparking. Everything appeared to work, except that it wouldn't 
start. It turned over really good on the starter, but did not start.

I bought a new alternator and ignition module and went to him to check 
what the problem was, and it turned out they had charged the battery 
backwards! I had a chevy van with positive ground :-(

I turned on all lights and let the battery drain again, and that takes 
longer than you think when you want it to drain.

When the battery was empty I tried to connect the charger the correct 
way at 12V, but the fuse would pop immediately and the gauge pegged. I 
set it to 6V, and the fuse would pop a few times there also, but after a 
while it stopped doing that. After a while the charging current at 6V 
had dropped enough to allow me to set the charger to 12V again and I let 
the battery charge fully.

After this I could connect the alternator again, which was OK, it just 
didn't like to see a positive ground. The ignition module was the only 
thing that was toast.

>  
> AutoRama starts tomorrow so I'm kind of in a panic. Thanks for any  
> suggestions you might have.
>  
> Jeff
> 6559

Good luck,
Thomas

> 
> 
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-- 
Real life:   Thomas Törnblom             Email:  Thomas.Tornblom at Hax.SE
Snail mail:  Banvallsvägen 14            Phone:    +46 18 444 33 21
              S - 754 40 Uppsala, Sweden  Cellular: +46 70 261 1372