Settings for charging battery

[Wing Nut]

Hello. We have a Dynamark/Murray lawn tractor mod. 42537x18a. My quesiton is charging the battery. The selections on thr charger is 12 volt... 6 volt....12 amp....2 amp

Any guess which settings I should use? Thanks!

 

[Fish]

12volt, 12 amp, it will charge up quicker. 2 amp overnight, if you want.

 

[djdicetn]

Hello. We have a Dynamark/Murray lawn tractor mod. 42537x18a. My quesiton is charging the battery. The selections on thr charger is 12 volt... 6 volt....12 amp....2 amp

Any guess which settings I should use? Thanks!

For small batteries like in a mower, my charger has 2amp, 10amp and 15amp modes. The book recommends 2amp for the small batteries, 10amp for deep cycle batteries and 15amp for automotive type batteries. I would go with the 2amp trickle charge if it were mine. And if the charger doesn't have an automatic shutoff, I would check the battery with a tester about every 2 hours. You should only have to put enoiugh of a charge to turn over the mower, no need to overcharge. After the mower starts it will charge & maintain the battery appropriately while running.

 

[Wing Nut]

That worked. Thanks!

 

[EngineMan]

A 18Amp/hour battery which is very low would take about nine hours on a 2Amp charge.

 

[djdicetn]

A 18Amp/hour battery which is very low would take about nine hours on a 2Amp charge.

That's "possible" depending on the charge state at time of charging. My manual for my Schumacher XCS15 has a Charge Rate/Charging Time chart based upon the battery being at 50% charge prior to recharging. For Motorcycle, Garden,Tractor, etc. batteries it shows....6-12Ah = 2-3.5 Hrs and 12-32Ah = 3.5-10 Hrs. I charge my ZTR battery(BatteriesPlus Extreme) once a month during the Winter storage and it never takes more than a couple of hours. Now, if it were "completely drained" it could take that long.