Venturous Randy Posted March 3, 2012 Share #1 Posted March 3, 2012 When I took a ride the other evening, I accidentally left my running lights on and they are not wired thru the ignition switch on purpose. I have plugged up my battery charger that charges at 6 amps on the high setting and 2 amps on the low. I am currently on the high setting. Is it ok to charge a dead DEKA battery like this? RandyA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stroker ace Posted March 3, 2012 Share #2 Posted March 3, 2012 If I wasn't in a hurry I would leave it on 2 amps over night or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snaggletooth Posted March 3, 2012 Share #3 Posted March 3, 2012 If it was me I'd keep it on the 2 amp setting for the duration. The DEKA will take a charge of up to about 15 v with no issue but if you ran it completly down I'd perfer a slow cook rather than a faster charge. 6 amps isn't all that much but still....... Does your charger shut down at a full charge? Once charged I'd let it sit for 24 hours to see where the volts level off at. With any luck they should come right back to 12.8. I'm curious on this one. I've never run mine anywhere near dead so the results should tell us how tough the AGM's are. I changed out all my marker lights to LED's a couple years then ended up leaving them on by accident for a week in the garage while I was gone. Came back and found the battey was still at 12.6. Hope it works out on the recovery. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyRich Posted March 4, 2012 Share #4 Posted March 4, 2012 I don't think you can charge a gel cell or agm like that.Requires 6 or 10 amps if I remember right. I did the same thing a few years ago to my Odyssey. Had to use the charger at 6 or10 amps to get it to take a charge. Its been so long I forgot now. But it was totally dead.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venturous Randy Posted March 4, 2012 Author Share #5 Posted March 4, 2012 It has been charging for about two hours and I just cranked it over and it done fine. I switched down to 2 amps and was planning on charging it all night at that level. I think I heard that an AGM type battery should be charged different than an acid battery. I think I have read on here about an AGM battery being different when using a trickle charger or float charger. I may go out to the garage in a couple of hours and disconnect the charger. I do appreciate the comments. RandyA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
friesman Posted March 4, 2012 Share #6 Posted March 4, 2012 Here is an article from Hot Rod Magazine on a way to charge dead AGM batteries. http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/general/hrdp_1009_how_to_charge_a_agm_battery/viewall.html Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bongobobny Posted March 4, 2012 Share #7 Posted March 4, 2012 If you have a plain old charger you should have no problems charging it. If you have one of those new high tech ones like mine it will give you problems. The hi tech ones think the battery is no good and will shut down when there is nothing wrong with the battery. Don't ask how I know this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Condor Posted March 4, 2012 Share #8 Posted March 4, 2012 When I took a ride the other evening, I accidentally left my running lights on and they are not wired thru the ignition switch on purpose. I have plugged up my battery charger that charges at 6 amps on the high setting and 2 amps on the low. I am currently on the high setting. Is it ok to charge a dead DEKA battery like this? RandyA I killed a Deka last July. 8.9vdc. Put it on a smart charger overnight in the motel room, and the next morning it was full. The only damage I think might have happened is it no longer holds a charge for 3 months over the winter just sitting. Now it's only about two, but it still recovers to full after charging. So with daily or weekly use during the summer it should be fine. Those Dekas are pretty tough.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venturous Randy Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share #9 Posted March 5, 2012 I ended up leaving the charger on 2 amps over night and when I looked at it at about noon, it was reading zero charge. I disconnected everything and hit the starter and it cranked over strong. So, I hope any long term damage was not done. The reason I do not have my running lights thru the ignition switch is a couple years ago for some reason I blew the main fuse that everything runs off of. To get home, I had to bypass the fuse and hope nothing shorted out. It didn't and I replaced thru fuse and it has been fine since. But, since then I decided to run the fog lights thru it's own fused circuit with a solenoid because if I ever had the main fuse blow again and it was dark, I would still have lights. Around here there are not a lot of straight roads and loosing all lights at night would not be a good thing. RandyA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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