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I've had an interesting experience over the past couple days with a battery charger. I rent garage space from a neighbor for winter storage and needed to charge a six volt battery over there. I brought a small DieHard charger/maintainer over and hooked it up. The charger has three indicators - “Charging”, “Battery Charged”, and “Battery Fault”. The fault light means that the connections are reversed or there's a short.
Normally, the Charging light glows for a while, then the Charged light goes on, and shortly afterwards the Charging light goes off.
In this case, the Charging light was flickering rapidly and the Charged light was lit. The Fault light was off. I knew that the battery was dead as a doornail since it showed about 0.5 volts on the meter. I tried this numerous times with the battery connected (to the car) and, later, with it removed from the car.
I brought the charger back home and tried it here, and it worked fine.
I finally brought the battery to my shop, figuring I needed a replacement. Just for the heck of it, I tried hooking the charger up again and this time it worked fine. So the only obvious variable here is the neighbor's electrical supply.
They have a box in their circuit that instantaneously fires up an emergency generator if the power fails – I don't know how it works but it produces a loud hum under normal conditions. I don't know if it affects the quality of their power. I do know that they can run computers etc with no problems.
The battery is now charged so I'm more curious than anything else. Does anyone have any ideas on why this would happen?
Normally, the Charging light glows for a while, then the Charged light goes on, and shortly afterwards the Charging light goes off.
In this case, the Charging light was flickering rapidly and the Charged light was lit. The Fault light was off. I knew that the battery was dead as a doornail since it showed about 0.5 volts on the meter. I tried this numerous times with the battery connected (to the car) and, later, with it removed from the car.
I brought the charger back home and tried it here, and it worked fine.
I finally brought the battery to my shop, figuring I needed a replacement. Just for the heck of it, I tried hooking the charger up again and this time it worked fine. So the only obvious variable here is the neighbor's electrical supply.
They have a box in their circuit that instantaneously fires up an emergency generator if the power fails – I don't know how it works but it produces a loud hum under normal conditions. I don't know if it affects the quality of their power. I do know that they can run computers etc with no problems.
The battery is now charged so I'm more curious than anything else. Does anyone have any ideas on why this would happen?
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