Topic: Car battery

[bill6567]

When charging your car battery in the car is it necessary to disconnect one of the battery cables? Don't want to lose the car radio memory.

[TheJ]

you can charge the battery with the cables still attached

[bill6567]

Thanks. The reason I am asking is because I have a schumacher battery charger/ maintainer and when I was charging it the little red trouble light glowed not really bright but it still was glowing a little. What would cause this, and  thats why I wondered if I should disconnect one one of the cables. The radios memory is on all the time and puts a small drain on the battery.

[BlackShadow]

If you do need to disconnect the battery your local auto part store should have a little deal which plugs into your cigarette lighter. It just a 9volt battery with a pig tail and it just give a small charge to keep the memory intact.

[TheJ]

What model of charger do you have?  It may not have a good connection, but its hard to say with out knowing the model.  You might want to look in your owners manual if you have one.

[bill6567]

Model # WM-1562A. No instruction manual.

[TheJ]

Heres the only 1562-a manual I could find.

http://www.batterychargers.com/Documents/00-99-000922-1009.pdf

If you have a voltmeter hook it up to your battery before you put the charger on to get a baseline.  Then do the same with the charger hooked up and turned on, it should have a higher voltage reading.  This means the charger is working.  If not I would contact schumacher and explain your situation to them.

hope this helps

[70_Cougar]

I was charging it the little red trouble light glowed not really bright but it still was glowing a little. What would cause this?

Does the little red trouble light have a symbol next to it?  Does that symbol look like the end of a appliance power cord?  If so, that red indicator simply indicates that the charger is plugged into a household power outlet.

Another light indicator would be yellow which means a charge is in progress

Another light indicator would be green which means the charge is completed successfully.

NOTE: Most modern chargers will not charge a dead or mostly dead battery.  Inside the charger there are voltage detector circuits that will not let the battery even start to charge until it detects a battery with some voltage.

To enable a "smart" charger to begin to charge a dead battery, you would have to temporarily give the charger and dead battery a voltage.  This can be done exactly like jumping a dead battery in a car with jumper cables. 

Proceed with that with caution.....Observe polarity.  The voltage only has to be provided momentarily to enable the charger.

John