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Battery Questions

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Garrett

Freshman Member
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Two Questions,
The battery in my Sprite was at ~12.8 volts a week ago. I haven't driven the car more than around the block and have let it idle in the drive way a little while I was working on it. Yesterday I checked the battery and it is now around 15-16 volts? I've never seen a battery this high before, (1)Should I be concerned about this? As far as I know the generator is fine, I have an alternator conversion to install but found the high voltage and thought that should be resolved first. (2)Is it possible for the generator to over charge the battery when the car has only been idling? Thanks
 
Sounds to me like your voltmeter is suspect. Before you make any decisions about your car check the voltmeter on your other cars and verify that it is reading correctly.
Bill
 
Good Idea, I hadn't thought that. I'll double check, What other posibilities for this problem, Voltage regulator? Bad battery? Is it safe to run the car?
 
I wouldn't run the car until I checked out the voltmeter, you could (doubtful) explode the battery from overcharge.
Bill
 
Yeah that will be first, it's always the easy stuff you check last so hopefully the voltmeter is off. I'll know once I get home for sure.
 
If it is not the Voltmeter, I would suspect the regulator of being at fault. The generator should provide a minimal charge at best at idle!!!
 
Did you measure the 15-16V battery voltage with the car running or not? If it was with the car running, you very likely have a bad regulator.

If with the car not running, it's hard to explain by any means other than a bad meter. That doesn't seem likely to me, but it's possible. I don't think it's possible to charge a lead-acid battery to such a high voltage, more than 3V per cell. I think you'd evaporate out most of the water before you got it that high.
 
Well looks like a bad voltmeter is the culprit here. checked voltage on my truck and it read high as well. Checked the dead battery out behind the garage and amazingly it also had 16 volts. Thanks I would never have suspected the voltmeter as it is relatively new.
 
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