After working on the tripowers the other night trying to fix the float levels I stupidly left the key on all night. Also the battery in question is a brand new AC Delco. The battery is dead and I hook up my battery charger on 10amp setting and a few minutes later I hear a clicking sound from the charger and then smoke starts to roll out of the charger. I unplug it and through the charger away (17yrs old Solar brand).
Can anyone explain what may have happened?
Also I returned the battery for a replacement just in case.
Jim

 

I think your charger died.

 

Haha Agreed BB
I ordered a Schumacher SC-1200A-CA SpeedCharge 12Amp 6/12V Fully Automatic Battery Charger.
It had good reviews on line..

 

My old 20 year old battery charger/starter did the same thing a few years ago.

 

So after this new AC Delco battery went totally dead the same night I bought it, and my charger burned up, I hooked it up on a 1.5 amp maintainer and its trouble light came on. If a brand new battery goes completely dead, does that mean the battery is toast and won't take a charge.

 

Not necessarily, but it could be a bad battery that you were going to have problems with in the near future. The light may mean it has a short or open circuit. Take it back.

 

You could have something that is draining the battery. How big a spark do you get when you connect it?

I'd take a test light or headlight bulb and connect it between the negative battery cable and negative battery post when you are connecting the new battery. If it lights up then you might have an issue. Especially a headlight bulb. It should never light up during this test when everything is off in the car.

 

Do you have a multi-meter, or a friend who does? An adjustable power supply would be helpful, too.

The voltage may be too low for the battery maintainer to maintain. It could see the battery as a dead short, and it won't even turn on. This could have fried your charger, too, assuming it has no internal circuit protection to prevent this scenario.

Can you tell us the voltage of the battery now? If you have a power supply that tells you voltage and current (or have a friend that does), you can use this to charge the battery slowly to see if you can get it back. If it was fully discharged (down to zero volts), your best bet may be to shrug your shoulders and exchange it.

 

I have a battery tender to keep my battery up. When I replaced my old dead battery with the new one the led indicators were flashing that my new battery was no good. I read through the instructions and found that the battery tender will not charge a battery testing at 3.0 or less volts. I charged my new battery with my 10A charger for a couple hours, which brought the new battery up to 12V and my car started up without hesitation. My battery tender functioned normally showing a full charge on the battery.

 

I would return the battery and let them test it. Even with the amperage draw from the key on, I could see it going dead but not bringing it down below a 6 volts level. When a battery goes down below 6 volts, thats when you could have problems.

 

When a brand new battery is discharged completely overnight, you should be able to recover it. I would bet you won't loose too much of it's capacity either. Time is on your side here.

The best way to get a charge into a "flat" (low-voltage) battery is to parallel a second (smaller capacity) battery on to the dead one for a few minutes and then put a charger on it. After the battery charger starts working for a few minutes you can disconnect the extra (second) battery. (You just do not want to do this if you have a battery with a suspected internal short or it could get exciting...)

If the battery was left flat discharged for a period of time (months) then you have trouble as the plates will be permanently damaged and may be unrecoverable.

I have noticed that many battery chargers will not charge a battery from less than 3 volts. This is why I use a small 12 volt battery in parallel to pull the voltage up in the dead battery. The maintainer chargers (from 750 Ma to 2 amps) will usually not charge one that low either.

I had a brand new Interstate battery for my C3 and I left it in a heated garage (for the winter) with a 1 amp "float charger". The cheap charger boiled this new battery out of electrolyte. The battery was toasted by this charger that did not "float" anything. It put 1 amp constantly into a fully charged battery, in effect it "overcharged" the battery while sitting on my shelf for 3 months. On a battery with a high "Self Discharge" rate this cheap charger would work.

When buying a float charger don't try to save money, remember what that battery cost in the first place. The better (more expensive) units can actually "maintain" a battery at full charge for months, even years. The nicer units have the ability to stop current from flowing and wait until it sees a specific voltage before turning back on.

Forcing a "fully" charged new battery to accept more current usually leads to trouble.

Good Luck with your battery and may it always be ready to start up your car!