The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay charging optima battery

I had a need to put my optima battery on a charger today. Google pointed me to Bateriesareus

Lot's of info I needed to know but didn't.

cletis,

Thanks. That's very interesting and helpful.

Tim

Ditto Tim's thought Cletis. I never got a reply from Optima when I asked them essentially the same question. Now I know why my 10 amp charger was cycling the circuit breaker while trying to recharge my battery. I'll be more careful about leaving the dome light on in the future.

It will take a good, professional charger to kick out 100 amps I think. I looked at several on-line, and even the big ones only have that capacity in a "start" mode. I wonder if you can run those things in "start" for intervals of 15 minutes.

Stuart

seems to me you're exactly right Stuart, no one here will have a charger able to supply 100amps - also the amount of amps will depend on the voltage delivered and the level of discharge of the battery, and it's actually the condition of the battery that dictates how it should be charged

optima's are AGM batteries, and ideally should be charged with a "smart charger", which supplies 3 stage charging, few of us have them, aside from RV owners with good electrical systems

Bill

It almost looks like the Optima is a throwaway battery once it is discharged, unless you have the charger and technique to bring it back to life, or you can find someone that does.

It's charging procedure sure isn't the same as a conventional battery, maintenance free included.



Stuart

Good information! Now I know why I bought a 150 amp DC power supply at a military surplus electronics sale. Weights a ton but I'll make my Optima quiver when I plug that big daddy on to it. Now, where are my welding cables?

I wonder if the advice above is only pertinent to 12v Optima batteries? I've had no problems charging a dead Optima 6v battery with a 10 amp charger?

Tim, my 6v optima wasn't completly dead, it would turn the starter but not fast enough to start. It kept forcing the circuit breaker in the charger (Schenaur (sp?) 10 amp) to cycle and pegged the meter past 10 amps each time the breaker reset. I suppose it could be a problem with the charger but it's never behaved like that before.

Tim it says 6 volt as well in their instructions. Personally I think 100 amps is a little over kill... Youd need a good welder to put out enough amperage!

Not strictly speaking of Optima batteries as I have no experience there, but I was always taught it was better to charge a battery at a lower amperage for a longer peiod of time then vice versa. Are Optimas that different?

Those guys are nuts! Chargine an Optima at 100 amps for ANY lenght of time is sure way to kill them. The should be charged slow, preferrably at 2 amps, for about 12 hours or so. We carried Optimas up 'til last year (Hoffman decided we needed the "diehard Platinum" instead, dumb move if you ask me) and the Optima catalog specifical states not to fast charge an Optima battery. I'll stick with my good old Traveller battery charger set on 2 amp trickle, thank you.

Ifound that charging a ottima battery is like filling a 55 gallon drum witha eye droper.I tryd chargin that thing for to days and it still did not geta full carge.My opinion is that there not worth the money.

Tim found the info on the Optima site and it disagrees with the source I posted first.

Optima charging specs