The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Charging a 6V battery

I'm sure this topic has been covered before on here, but I came up empty handed with the search feature. Is it possible to charge a 6V battery with a 12V charger? We have a small 10 amp/2amp 12V charger that works great on 12V batteries on either setting. I'm looking at this truck and it has 4 6V batteries in the box under the driver's door. I'm trying to see if it will run before I buy it and charging the batteries up is part of the job.

Dad asked this one, since it has 4 6V batteries set up like this be swapped out for 2 12V batteries with this set up? Or would the amount of cold cranking amps become an issue?

The truck may not be a 'bolt, but it does qualify for the ATHS, and I couldn't think of a better set of guys to ask.

Either way would work since you have 2 six volt batteries in series = 12 volt and two of those pairs in parallel = stronger 12 volts.

Your charger will work fine but will take longer than a charger with a higher amperage which is actually better for batteries than a quick hot charge.

You can't charge "A" 6 volt battery with a 12 volt charger but you can charge two connected in series or four if you connect them as in your diagram.

Thanks guys, Dad was wondering about that since newer trucks have 2 12V batteries in parallel, and those 4 6V batteries added up to 2 12V batteries in parallel.

The guy at FLAPS did show me a 12V batter with 1100 cold cranking amps that is well within my budget, I believe that ~2200 amps would be more than enough to spin over a 12L diesel. Knowing that its a 12V system will make shopping for parts much easier, I had been thinking it was a 24V system for some reason.