Battery dead - can I use trickle charger to charge it up?
#16
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#17
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FYI, Kragen (O'Reilley) has the Shumacher trickle charger on sale this weekend for $25.
I have used the Shumacher trickle chargers for many years on all 4 Porsches that i have owned, permanently mounted next to the battery. A lot cheaper than the official Porsche unit that plugs into the lighter.
#18
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I wouldn't use a trickle charger to try to bring back a flat battery, especially if it is a glass mat battery. Even a regular charger has trouble with those due to the high draw. Pep Boys will charge and test the battery for free if you take it out and bring it in.
FYI, Kragen (O'Reilley) has the Shumacher trickle charger on sale this weekend for $25.
I have used the Shumacher trickle chargers for many years on all 4 Porsches that i have owned, permanently mounted next to the battery. A lot cheaper than the official Porsche unit that plugs into the lighter.
FYI, Kragen (O'Reilley) has the Shumacher trickle charger on sale this weekend for $25.
I have used the Shumacher trickle chargers for many years on all 4 Porsches that i have owned, permanently mounted next to the battery. A lot cheaper than the official Porsche unit that plugs into the lighter.
#19
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So it's a beautiful morning, cool, sun is out and since it's a long weekend and traffic will be light, I said hmmm..maybe I should drive into work. Take the car cover off, admired the big butt that I hadn't seen in weeks, and proceeded to start car. Nothing... ..dead as a door nail...so on went the trickle charger. I had forgotten to put the charger on since our last fun-run... This thread will certainly be a reminder...
lol..the C is driven all the time, the E is a quasi garage queen...
#20
Quick update -- I plugged in the porsche branded ctek 3300 into the cig lighter adapter and about 5 minutes later the door alarm lights started flashing again. That's good news. Hopefully I can get a engine crank out of it tomorrow.
Thanks all for the replies
Thanks all for the replies
#22
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vokain (04-14-2022)
#25
Drifting
Just to add another data point.
My 997.2 was totally dead from having sat for months this summer. It had a relatively new battery in it (1-2 yrs old). Plugged in the trickle charger. Initially a bit crazy time, as the car coming back to life does its light flashing/beeping exercise, but as the trickle charger feeds current in 1 second bursts, it looked and sounded a bit like a low volume dance club in the garage. That went on for 5-10 minutes until there was enough charge in the battery for the car to settle down and stop beeping and blinking its tail and hazard lights and interior lights. At that point, I still didn't have enough juice to pop the hood release (which the Cobra JumpPack I'd picked up a year ago, also didn't accomplish - more on that in another post). No window operation, no nothing... it appeared as dead, but silent. So I let it do its thing. (this was ~7pm in the evening).
10am the next morning (some 15 hrs later), checked on the car, it was still charging, but it was now alive. I could operate the windows up and down (to reset them) and the interior lights came on and off with door closure; the window up on door close now worked again. Hood release worked. Battery Maintainer still indicated it was not fully recharged so I let it stay on the charger.
10am the next day (some 39 hrs on the charger) the charger light was green. Turned off the charger, then on again... 30 secs later it was green again. So it took between about 16-39 hrs to recharge a totally flat but relatively new battery.
My 997.2 was totally dead from having sat for months this summer. It had a relatively new battery in it (1-2 yrs old). Plugged in the trickle charger. Initially a bit crazy time, as the car coming back to life does its light flashing/beeping exercise, but as the trickle charger feeds current in 1 second bursts, it looked and sounded a bit like a low volume dance club in the garage. That went on for 5-10 minutes until there was enough charge in the battery for the car to settle down and stop beeping and blinking its tail and hazard lights and interior lights. At that point, I still didn't have enough juice to pop the hood release (which the Cobra JumpPack I'd picked up a year ago, also didn't accomplish - more on that in another post). No window operation, no nothing... it appeared as dead, but silent. So I let it do its thing. (this was ~7pm in the evening).
10am the next morning (some 15 hrs later), checked on the car, it was still charging, but it was now alive. I could operate the windows up and down (to reset them) and the interior lights came on and off with door closure; the window up on door close now worked again. Hood release worked. Battery Maintainer still indicated it was not fully recharged so I let it stay on the charger.
10am the next day (some 39 hrs on the charger) the charger light was green. Turned off the charger, then on again... 30 secs later it was green again. So it took between about 16-39 hrs to recharge a totally flat but relatively new battery.
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vokain (04-14-2022)
#26
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If battery has run flat you may want to look into a charger with desulfation feature. Removes sulfate crystals that damage the battery, which regular chrgers don't do.
#27
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[QUOTE=Gamma;7702276
Can I get a maintainer or trickle charger to charge the battery via the cig lighter socket?[/QUOTE]
I have a I.5 amp float charger plugged into my cigarette lighter. I revived a dead battery after charging for 18 hours.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher...arger/13005742
Can I get a maintainer or trickle charger to charge the battery via the cig lighter socket?[/QUOTE]
I have a I.5 amp float charger plugged into my cigarette lighter. I revived a dead battery after charging for 18 hours.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher...arger/13005742
Last edited by pp000830; 03-17-2015 at 02:07 PM.
#28
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As an added note, sometimes you may have to "wake" your battery from a "deep sleep" with a standard 12V-10A charger. Just over night, then the trickle should be good. The trickle chargers just don't have enough amps to kick start the cells to wake up.
#29
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The reason why some battery chargers, and not only trickle or maintenance chargers, do not charge an excessively discharged battery that is low in volts is because the charger circuitry needs to see a certain battery voltage to function.
And that will depend on the charger; some operate at higher voltages than others. In those cases, you need a DC power supply to raise the battery voltage to the limit the charger will start to charge. You can also do that by using booster cables from a good battery, at which point when the charger starts to charge, you disconnect the booster cables.
Of course none of this should ever happen. So use a battery maintainer while the vehicle is parked for more than a month.
And that will depend on the charger; some operate at higher voltages than others. In those cases, you need a DC power supply to raise the battery voltage to the limit the charger will start to charge. You can also do that by using booster cables from a good battery, at which point when the charger starts to charge, you disconnect the booster cables.
Of course none of this should ever happen. So use a battery maintainer while the vehicle is parked for more than a month.
#30
Drifting
+1 on the CTEK here. I got all my accessories for it from Amazon so can't help you with the local availability.