Battery question
 

The other day I went out to put the rear window down in my 4runner and found the battery was dead, dead, dead. Not sure why...though I must have accidently left some auxiliary on. Anyhow, I went to charge the thing and the battery started to sizzle. Not only that, the charger needle went clear past the last digit, stayed there for a few seconds, then clicked all the way back to 0. It kept doing that every few seconds...back and forth, and the battery would sizzle everytime it tried to charge. The charger is set at 12volts and 6amps. Could someone tell me what the hell is going on here? I suspect I have a dead cell in the battery or something.

Thanks!

how old is the battery ?

4 or 5 years...yeah, I know. It's that time! But, the sizzling...what the hell is that? A dead cell?

Bacon sizzles. I like bacon. Bacon and maple syrup, yum!

















On a serious note, I've never heard a battery sizzle before. Be interesting to see what some of the others say the cause could be.

Sealed/unsealed battery? Perhaps it was the fact your supposed to remove the caps if it isnt sealed when charging and that was the gases from the battery acid.

Mmmm, bacon and syrup...I can smell it now! (Stop!....you're making me hungry!)


Yep, it will be interesting. I was afraid the damn thing was about explode in my face. I definitely would like to avoid that!
Thanks for posting, EWAYota! Now, go have some bacon!

Hmmm...I never heard that before. It does have caps, but I've never removed them before. And I always buy a battery I can maintain myself. So, I've done this a lot. Okay, so I'm supposed to remove the caps, huh? Have any idea on the needle jumping like I described. I can't turn up squat on a search about it.

It sounds like you either have a really bad battery or a really bad short. Most likely it is a bad battery. Get a volt meter, they cost about 10 bucks and are invaluable in diagnosing electrical problems. Long story short, if the battery has less than 12.2 volts after a load test then it is dead.

Sizzle is the sound of escaping hydrogen gas as the charging current hits the battery. They all do that to some degree, depending on state of charge, temperature and the charging rate.

The needle going full scale/0/FS/etc. is likely the charger auto-protecting itself from a shorted battery. It starts out trying to push full current into the battery, but then the overload circuit kicks in and shuts the charging current off for a bit, then resets and starts over again. Kind of like an automatic/self-resetting circuit breaker.

Probably have a short in a cell and it is like you have a 10 volt battery (2 volts/cell) instead of 12 volts.

Thanks very much guys! You all confirmed what I finally found in a search with good keywords.

http://www.battery-chargers.com/char...structions.htm

Charger Overload.
The charger is protected against overloads by a self-resetting DC circuit breaker. An overload is indicated when a full scale ammeter reading abruptly falls to zero accompanied by a distinct "click" of the DC circuit breaker as it trips. A 3 to 5 minute cooling off period is required before the breaker will reset itself. If the overload condition still exists, the cycle will repeat.
Listed below are the conditions that can cause the circuit breaker to trip:
A deeply discharged battery (Specific Gravity near 1.120). If the battery is in otherwise good condition, the circuit breaker may trip on and off several times until the battery recovers enough to allow a normal charge rate. If the tripping continues after 30 minutes, a larger charger should be used.
A battery with a shorted cell. A battery in this condition may cause the breaker to trip continuously. It will not accept a charge and should be replaced.

Hmmm...dead battery! Pfft!