My Optima deep cycle was completely dead. So dead that it killed two trickle chargers I tried to use on it. I finally put it on a big shop charger. Now, it reads 12 volts, but when I turn the charger on it wants to draw 35-40 amps. Is that normal, or is the battery toast?

 

Its toast.

 

It's possible that something may have grounded a few plates or that it's sulfated. At least you can drop it!

Drop it from about 6" onto concrete. Make sure you wear long trousers. If you have access to a battery activater or better a battery "pulse" system charger then try that too.

Batteries do fail however. I have had a AC Delco last 12 years though. That was the OEM battery with the 86 Caprice.

 

It's a spiral core gel battery, probably about 8 months old.

 

Hmmm, this is the second Optima I have heard that was tough to re-charge when completly drained. I would sure contact Optima direct (not a dealer) and see what they say about a deep discharge - there may be a proceedure to bring it back.

BTW, it's an AGM (absorbed glass matt) battery and the electrolite is a paste in a glass matt wound in those sprials.

Good Luck,

Pete

 

Butter it :jester

 

Those battery units fry often and quickly and will repeat the performance with each new unit intalled. I never got into the chemistry or phyics of it, I just stopped wasting time and money on replacing them after 4 units went WEST. Do your self and your sanity a favor get a proper battery>

 

This car has been notorious for eating batteries since I bought it. Sometimes in as few as three months. I bought an Optima on the recommendation of a friend of mine who uses them in heavy equipment at a rock plant. He said they get much longer life out of them than they do out of standard batteries.

 

Lead acid batteries really don't like to be fully discharged, and you can only do this so often. Automotive batteries are meant not to deep discharge too often. Best to keep it charged at all times, and cool when possible.

A car that eats a lot of batteries often has a high charge rate (poor regulator in alternator), bad connections (load dumps, spikes in voltage/current), or lots of heat. Also if the car keeps discharging the battery, that's another problem.

If this is only the first time this battery has been fully discharged, I'll bet money it can be re-charged with the right method.

What was the cause of the deep discharge? Is this problem (discharging) similar to the previous batteries? Maybe the board can help cause the source of the problems.

 

The only thing I know to do is to hook up a DVM in series with the battery, close the hood so the underhood lamps are out, and then read how many milliamps the car is drawing (should be 50 or less). I've read some posts about the underhood lamps playing havoc with the battery, but I've never been able to catch my car doing anything unusal, electrically so to speak with a DVM hooked up. I think there was also a post about the Bose Amp Relay being stuck open and draining a battery, but you should see this while monitoring draw. If you see or suspect a drain, then start pulling fuses until the drain is gone. That will at least identify the problem circuit. The other problem might be that you're not starting with a fully charged battery and since most Vette alternators are crap to begin with, you're never going to get it charged. In fact, if you do a lot of stop and go along with idling in traffic, you're just draining the battery further as the alternator doesn't have the juice to keep up with the system. This also leads to the early demise of the alternator; speaking of which, if one took a dump on you recently, did you fully recharge the battery before cranking it back up? Finally, do all the other checks for clean connections, voltage drop from the alternator to junction block and good cables, especially the grounds. I think it was in '89, that Chevy rerouted or added a ground strap from the battery to the frame or from the engine to the frame due to poor grounds.

 

:yesnod: :yesnod: A trickle charger shouldn't get killed by a battery... my guess is that a plate or two inside is shorting out...