The battery is one of the most important parts of a modern car. It is thanks to the battery that the car starts up and the starter turns, which starts the engine. In normal cases, the battery is charged by the operation of the generator. But a situation may happen that the battery is completely discharged and it will not be possible to start the engine. That's when you need to be able to charge the battery yourself.
Necessary
- - hydrometer;
- - distilled water;
- - modern charger.
Instructions
Step 1
Before starting the charging process, keep the battery in a warm room until it reaches room temperature. Do not charge a lead acid battery when it is cold.
Step 2
After the battery reaches room temperature, you need to unscrew the plugs on each of the compartments and measure the density of the electrolyte, as well as evaluate its level. There are maintenance-free batteries and helium batteries. You don't need to do this in them.
Step 3
To measure the density of the electrolyte in each of the cells, you need to use the so-called. hydrometer. The meaning of the devices is simple - it works according to Archimedes' law. The scale float sinks in liquid. The denser the liquid, the less the float sinks. The normal density of the electrolyte is 1.29 g / cm3. Simply lower the float into the cells one at a time and check the reading.
Step 4
Next, evaluate the electrolyte level. The electrolyte should completely cover the lead plates and exceed their level by 15 mm. Moreover, each cell must have the same electrolyte level. If this is not the case, then distilled water must be added to the electrolyte. Keep in mind that if the electrolyte level is low, then the density value must also be checked after adding water.
Step 5
After measurements have been taken, you can connect the charger. The plus terminal must be connected to the plus and the minus must be connected to the minus, respectively. Chargers are different. It is highly desirable to purchase an automatic charger that automatically regulates the charging voltage and current. If the battery is not serviced, then you cannot do without such a device. With a conventional battery, everything is easier, but you also have to monitor the parameters.
Step 6
Moving directly to the charging process, you need to remember that there are several types of this procedure: constant current charging, constant voltage charging and a combined method. We will use the constant voltage charging method as the easiest one. Also, if the charger allows (and most modern devices can do it), then we will use the combined method.
Step 7
We set the charging voltage on the charger to 15 V. We need to get 14, 4 V on the battery - this is the voltage of a working battery. We set the current strength at the level of 0, 6-0, 8 of the battery capacity. As the battery charges, the current will decrease as the resistance of the battery changes. A modern charger regulates all these parameters by itself.
Step 8
Now let's wait until the green light on the charger lights up or the charging current arrow drops to zero. On average, it takes 15-20 hours.
