I've taken the battery out of my van to charge it, but I'm not sure that my charger is working right so want to check the charge of said battery. Is it just a matter of connecting the multimeter to + and - and that's it? s fully charged batt just under 13v? Just wanted to check so I don't blow up my battery, my multimeter or indeed myself. All answers as if you're talking to a numpty please. Love and best wishes, Johnson McBumsquirty. Xxxx
that's about as good/simple a test mate,thou its a potential diff. over 2 points, best general test for a batt is imo to have Comm. garage load test it ,some of the repair type national "chain(s) do offer a free test(but advise if you get one done you observe test being done)are you charging a sealed for life batt ?
that's about right - and when you turn the engine on, the charge should drop for a second before kicking back up. If the charge in below 12v then there could be a problem but yours sounds okay
Dear numpty mc underpants, if the battery is totally flat which would most likely be the case if for example it was left flat in the back of an old scrapper for a year . The battery may be so flat that the battery charger doesn't know it's there. If you have jump leads its worth attaching the duff battery to you car and run it for 10 mins or so to put some high amp charge into it and thus kickstarting the battery so the charger can see it. If you get me my old chocolate muffin
WHS ^^^ if you have a modern charger it wont register the battery if it fallen below a certain amps so i use my jump starter pack to fool it into working.
a fully charged battery is 12.6V but it will be higher than that if its just come off charge, the surface charge dissipates in a few hours. An old skool charger will charge it anyway, but if its below 9v a modern charger may not register its there so you would need to put an initial charge into it first, easiest is via jump leads
