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Reverse polarity

J

jaoneill

Member
This is probably a Guido question but any input would be much appreciated. A neice left her car (volks) here for the winter. Last fall I put it in the pole barn and after running it for a bit to be sure the batt had a good charge, I disconnected the batt cables and attached a 1 amp solar trickle charger to the isolated battery. Just tried to start it and the battery is flat, dead, not so much as a dash light. Hooked up my "smart" charger and it immediately began to flash that I had the cables reversed; but I didn't, they were correct. Tried reversing them, putting + to - , - to +, and the charger seemed happy. WTH??
 
"Smart" chargers are nothing by a nuisance when attempting to charge a completely dead battery, in my experience, although they MAY be getting "smarter" with time.

Charge it slowly with a "dumb" charger, making sure to connect the leads properly.
 
Was your solar charger hooked up with correct polarity. Had several come into the shop that had little or no charge and the owner charged them up in
reverse polarity. We discharged them and recharged them correctly and they worked fine after that.
 
I definitely had the solar charger clamps correct on the battery but since most of that stuff comes from the land of almost right it's very likely it is wired incorrectly internally.
 
(quoted from post at 12:06:00 03/31/20) I definitely had the solar charger clamps correct on the battery but since most of that stuff comes from the land of almost right it's very likely it is wired incorrectly internally.
Click to expand...

"had the solar charger clamps correct on the battery but since most of that stuff comes from the land of almost right it's very likely it is wired incorrectly internally."

My bet would be that the "smart" charger was simply "confused" by the dead battery.
 
If the solar charger was "inside" the barn and since they are of such low amperage to begin with, the battery could be completely dead. Even if exposed to sunlight perhaps the solar charger is defective or mis (polarity) labeled or incorrect???

If a battery is completely dead it may be difficult or take some time to actually start accepting a charge and it may temporarily require higher voltage or charge rate to get it started charging. If you have another traditional charger around stick it on for a while n see what happens, the one you have may be too "smart" to start correctly with a total dead battery.

Ive had total dead batteries that took forever to start charging.

John T
 
The solar panel is/was outside in direct sunlight from noon til dark. I put a conventional charger on the battery in the shop, set on a 2 amp charge, I'll see what tomorrow brings. I also have a 1 amp trickle charger and have had good luck putting that on a dead one like this for a few days until it will accept a faster charge. Solar charger has to be defective (reversed polarity). Jim
 
Bob I was with you on the SMART chargers until I had a HF gift card for Christmas and spent it on this little thing. It has saved a couple of batteries and is light and easy to move. I am not a big fan of harbor freight but this thing sure is worth the money. Photo attached
cvphoto10303.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 21:46:57 03/31/20) Bob I was with you on the SMART chargers until I had a HF gift card for Christmas and spent it on this little thing. It has saved a couple of batteries and is light and easy to move. I am not a big fan of harbor freight but this thing sure is worth the money. Photo attached
Click to expand...
I have that very same unit with a different name sticker on the front. It does permanent duty as a maintainer, hooked to one of three banks of (wintertime) idle batteries in the shop.
 
I have two solar maintainers, and you have to watch carefully when you hook them up. They come with a two prong plug that will connect into an adapter that will plug into a cigarette lighter. Polarity is correct when using the cigarette lighter plug if your vehicle has negative ground. They also have an adapter with two battery clips. The polarity is incorrect for negative ground when you use the battery clips.

I recommend checking the solar maintainer output with a meter to see what it is giving you.
 
I quit buying battery chargers because of the so called "Smart Charger". It's one of the things that should be un-invented. The electronics in them constantly screw up. You could take a perfectly good battery
and drain it dead and put a smart charger on it and instead of charging it would say the battery was sulfated and turn itself off. I had to take a HF battery maintainer and get the battery 80% charged before a
smart charger would charge the battery. It doesn't surprise me your's is saying the polarity is reversed. I bet if you would charge the battery it would say the polarity is correct.
 


Joneil, I had a very similar experience once. I somehow cut the wires of a solar maintainer, and spliced them back together. Come spring the battery was dead. IN the interim I had picked up a much better multimeter which revealed that I had reversed the polarity of the maintainer, and slowly sucked the charge out of my lawnmower battery.
 
Over the winter this one sucked a full charge out of the battery, then charged it backwards (to 10%). I put the 1 amp plug in maintainer on it yesterday, properly configured; I'll check on it later and if it's changed the polarity back and charging properly, put the regular charger on to bring it to a full charge.
Apparently, per PJH's comment above, he had a similar issue with solar maintainers from the C.H. Ina Company. Out of curiosity I will put a meter to the solar charger later today and check the polarity.
 
(quoted from post at 09:31:13 03/31/20) This is probably a Guido question but any input would be much appreciated. A neice left her car (volks) here for the winter. Last fall I put it in the pole barn and after running it for a bit to be sure the batt had a good charge, I disconnected the batt cables and attached a 1 amp solar trickle charger to the isolated battery. Just tried to start it and the battery is flat, dead, not so much as a dash light. Hooked up my "smart" charger and it immediately began to flash that I had the cables reversed; but I didn't, they were correct. Tried reversing them, putting + to - , - to +, and the charger seemed happy. WTH??
Click to expand...

I had something similar happen just a few months ago. Turned out to be a dead cell in the battery. Basically happened over night.
 
(quoted from post at 10:11:02 04/01/20) Over the winter this one sucked a full charge out of the battery, then charged it backwards (to 10%). I put the 1 amp plug in maintainer on it yesterday, properly configured; I'll check on it later and if it's changed the polarity back and charging properly, put the regular charger on to bring it to a full charge.
Apparently, per PJH's comment above, he had a similar issue with solar maintainers from the C.H. Ina Company. Out of curiosity I will put a meter to the solar charger later today and check the polarity.
Click to expand...
Update******** The little 1 amp charger, attached correctly, did the trick; by noon yesterday when I switched to the "smart" charger the battery was back to the proper polarity at 11.5 volts and 20% charged. When I checked after supper it was good to go; 100% at 12.6V.
 
(quoted from post at 03:28:30 04/02/20)
(quoted from post at 10:11:02 04/01/20) Over the winter this one sucked a full charge out of the battery, then charged it backwards (to 10%). I put the 1 amp plug in maintainer on it yesterday, properly configured; I'll check on it later and if it's changed the polarity back and charging properly, put the regular charger on to bring it to a full charge.
Apparently, per PJH's comment above, he had a similar issue with solar maintainers from the C.H. Ina Company. Out of curiosity I will put a meter to the solar charger later today and check the polarity.
Click to expand...
Update******** The little 1 amp charger, attached correctly, did the trick; by noon yesterday when I switched to the "smart" charger the battery was back to the proper polarity at 11.5 volts and 20% charged. When I checked after supper it was good to go; 100% at 12.6V.
Click to expand...


Good deal!
 
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