On Mon, 5 Jan 2009 05:36:17 -0800 (PST), ransley
wrote:

On Jan 5, 3:20*am, mm wrote:
On Sat, 3 Jan 2009 12:40:47 -0800 (PST),
wrote:



What is battery voltage

12V- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

12v is 25% charged or 75% dead.

Sorry.. I thought you meant what kind of battery.. I'm not sure of the
actual voltage.. My multimeter isn't working

I think the problem is your lack of a vent hole, but if you want to
check the voltage on a 12 volt battery, connect a car lightbulb across
the ternmainal and see if it glows at the proper brightness. *Better
yet, connect a car horn and see if has the proper noise. *(Although a
horn in a cement basement might be a bad idea.)

A bulb a horn wont tell you didly on a batterys condition, keep it

I wrote my whole post below and then realized the key was here. I'm
not talking about the battery's total condition. If his multimeter
were working (and it's not) the meter wouldn't give the full battery
condition either. I only gave him a substitute for a voltmeter and
I'm only talking about the voltage, and the voltage is a good
indicator of whether the charger is functioning. Hey, I just looked
to see how the topic came up, and you were the one who asked what is
the voltage in the first place. You didn't ask about battery
condition in this subthread.

undercharged at 12.25v and it wil be sulfated in 1 year and worthless

I think those are two alsmost separate things. If the bulb or horn
doesn't work it might be because the battery is worthless or because
it is discharged.

OTOH, if it's sulfated and worthless it won't light the bulb or blow
the horn. If the battery is still good but discharged, the horn will
make less than the expected amount of noise, from nothing to a click,
to a buzz, to a weak horn sound, depending on how undercharged it is.
It takes a pretty high voltage to give a full blast sound.

The horn is better than the lightbulb because when the bulb is almost
bright enough or more, it's harder to judge just how bright the bulb
is than to judge the sound of the horn. And because the horn draws
more current, which matters when the battery isn't charged enough.
This comes up most often in cars, where people are told to check if
their battery is charged by turning the lights on. Especially in the
day time, it's really hard to tell how bright a lightbulb is, and much
easier to tell how loud the horn is.

I"m not saying this will tell you how much longer the battery will
work, but it will tell you what the voltage is when you do it. It
won't give a specific number of volts, but it will still show the
voltage.