I am having problems using a trickle/ACtoDC charger to refill my batteries. Do these things not work if you are running parallel batteries? Btw they are red tops not deep cell.

 

Anyone??? Come on somebody has to have an idea?

 

PM CLPower, he should know.

 

Ideally they should be charged seperatly, the charger doesn't know it's charging two batteries so it takes the average of the two voltages (remember parallel circuts with voltage) For example, if one accepts a charge faster or starts out with a higher voltage, you may end up with one battery with 16 volts and the other one will only get charged to 12v. (assuming the battery charger stops at 14volts.

Cant trickle charge if you have a solenoid type isolator.

If the batteries are the same age and are fairly new you shouldn't have a problem.

I don't know if it's my charger, but the 2amp setting won't fully charge my battery no matter how long it's on the charger. I set it on 2 amps over night then 6amps for a couple of hours to fully charge.

 

Thanks Dano80g, Their is a 2v setting but I was using the 12V then there is a 75V starting setting. But the charg gage just slightly vibrates around 0v and after three hours there was no change so I still have yet to figure it out. My batteries are in my trunk so maybe I'll just have to pull them.

 

as long as they are hooked up parralell you shouldn't have a problem w/ them on the trickle charger. If they are hooked up in series you will need a 24 volt trickle charger. (I'm pretty sure that's right, let me go ask our tech guy real quick)



Also, that's how I have the batteries in my suburban hooked up, two of our deep cycles hooked up paralel.

What kind of charger are you using? Just curious, why didn't you get the deep cycle optimas?

 

he said I'm right.

 

Were the batteries dead before you started charging them? If not that sounds normal. The gauge on the charger is an amp gauge. It reads how fast the battery is getting charged. 0 apms means it's fully charged. You'll have to use a voltmeter to check volts.

 

also, look into their DC batteries, they hold and charge better then the starting batteries.