On Saturday, May 2, 2015 at 8:51:52 PM UTC-4, J Burns wrote:
On 5/2/15 7:19 PM, micky wrote:
On Sat, 02 May 2015 17:53:34 -0400, J Burns wrote:

On 5/2/15 3:57 PM, micky wrote:
To everyone, yes the battery was very much discharged. I knew that.
The hydrometer shoed 4 cells in the red (semi-cheap hydrometer, no
number assigned to red) and the other 2 very close to the red.
However the battery's voltage was above 12.6 anyhow. (well maybe I
didn't wait until the "surface charge" dissipated, like Philo said to
do. But then the owner came and took the battery away. He has a
charger he thought wasn't working. This is for the truck he rarely
drivesl, but I guess he wanted to drive it the day he got the battery.)

I quit fooling with hydrometers decades ago. In some batteries, it's
hard to get to the electrolyte. Gas bubbles, as in a glass of ginger
ale, will cause false readings.

I didn't have those problems with this battery.

How do you know the red readings were correct? You said it was a dead
battery. I would have expected a dead battery to draw more current after
an hour, not less.


I've heard that totally dead batteries may draw less current.
But every auto battery I've even tried to charge, the current
is initially higher, then starts coming down in 5 or 10 mins.
The more drained it was, the higher the current it pulled from
the charger. But then I haven't had one that was like connected
to a load to totally drain it down to absolute zero.