schwank

So I forgot to turn off the battery cutoff after my last event and my Odyssey PC680MJ battery is dead. It is only about 18 months old, and held a charge great all winter while it was out of the car.

I have tried several times to get it to charge and my charger seems to hate the thing. I have a Sears automatic charger with settings for Normal, Deep Cycle, and AGM/Gel, as well as several charging rates. From what I can tell I should be charging on the AGM setting correct? I've tried slow and normal charging.

When I start the charger, it seems to work OK. The voltage climbs to around 8 and then the charger kinda freaks out and shuts down... is the auto charger not compatible with these batteries or is this a sign in general that something is up with the battery?

Sorry to clog this forum but I would assume the highest concentration of folks running lightened batteries over here in the Racing forum.

DrJupeman

I've had the same problem with an Optima. I think when these gel batteries are completely drained, they can be lost forever. No charger I have tried, and I've tried at least three, have been able to re-charge it.

earlyapex

http://www.odysseybatteries.com/charging.htm

Have you read this? I have very good luck with the same battery. It's never good fully dead so I keep it charged with a Battery Tender.

sjanes

I've completely drained mine a couple of times and use the "deep cycle" setting and it came back fine.

FLA997

I had the same issue...until I broke down and bought one of the Optima chargers. The Optima chargers brought it back to life no problem at all when a traditional deep cycle wouldnn't. I thought for sure my 680 was toast...but is now good as new.

After talking with Optima directly, I found out that using a traditional Deep Cycle is a no-no with these batteries that will actually decrease its service life.

The Optima charger, although, more expensive than a deep-cycle, is a nice unit that I am glad I bought at this point.

Also, NEVER connect the negative ground clip to the Optima negative post while charging - always the chassis frame or other suitable location.

mark kibort

is your charger connected and the reading is "8", meaning 8amps? if so, thats a good sign. the internal resistance is still low and its drawing amps to recharge itself. However, the charger might be not up to the task. put a 1ohm/5watt resistor. (you can find one almost anywhere) in line, as it will current limit the charge back to about 4-5amps . most decent chargers will charge the battery over night.
If you cant find a resistor, see if you can attach the charger until it fails several more times until there is some juice put back in the battery. then, the current draw will go down to normal ranges. A real simple way to do that, would be to jump start the car and let the alternator charge it for a few mins. Then, put it on the charger.

ive done this before, and all it really does is decrease its capacity, ambient voltage, and most likely service life.

mk

Nader Fotouhi

I have an Oddesy that stayed in the car with the kill switch off all winter. I charged it at the begining of the driving season and it has been working fine. I do not know what my charger is, but I used the slow charge setting (2 Amps?) for about 15 hrs.

Mahler9th

I bought and used a PC 680 about 10 years ago-- probably an early adopter. I contacted the manufacturer-- Hawker, and they recommended the Battery Tender products, which I used and worked fine. I also used a PC 925 at times. Conventional chargers were not as useful on my Hawker batteries.

For the past 8 years, I have been using an Interstate motorcycle (Harley app), battery. Works with conventional chargers, less expensive and a little lighter than PC 680.

Jscaramella

Same issue once. We used the shop snap-on charger. After 8-10 hours its back, running for the whole season with no issue. I too can leave the kill engaged with no issue's, its when I accidentally left the key on that the dead batt occurred

kgorman

My 680 was dead, and I used a Battery Tender to recharge w/o problem.

kurt M

If your automatic charger does not have a deep cycle setting you can try a lttle trick. Take a 50 foot or longer regular extention cord and short one wire into the other by sticking a jumper into the two slots. this doubles the lenght of the wire by making two into one long one. Hook one side of the other end of the cord to the battery using some wire and conect the + clamp to the other tab. This makes a reistor with enough wattage and should fake out most automatic chargers into starting a charge cycle. Leave it hooked up for a few hours at least before condeming the setup as sometimes it takes a while. Once you see the charger amps rising you can charge using the standard methods so long as the charger is within spec.

kurt M

If your automatic charger does not have a deep cycle setting you can try a little trick. Take a 50 foot or longer regular extension cord and short one wire into the other by sticking a jumper into the two slots. This doubles the length of the wire by making two into one long one. Hook one side of the other end of the cord to the battery using some wire and connect the + clamp to the other tab. This makes a resistor with enough wattage and should fake out most automatic chargers into starting a charge cycle. Leave it hooked up for a few hours at least before condemning the setup as sometimes it takes a while. Once you see the charger amps rising you can charge using the standard methods so long as the charger is within spec.