Battery charger

[Ron Lowe]

Silly question, but I'm a little confused. What is the best way to hook up a battery charger to a 6 volt, positive ground? Thanks in advance Ron

[Mitch//pa]

+ to+ and -- to --

being positive ground does not matter just keep the polaritys the same

[Tom Wesenberg]

I like to connect the leads at the starter switch and any good ground near it. It's much easier than going to the battery, plus it keeps the sparks away from the battery.

For a good battery charger I like any 4 to 10 amp charger with a nice analog meter that has numbers to show the actual charge rate. Meters that only show HIGH, LOW, MEDIUM don't mean much to me.

[Patrick L.]

Yep, I agree. Positive+ to a good ground as in a starter mounting bolt and the negative - to the starter switch stud.
Just make sure to every once in awhile remove and brush clean the battery terminal connections as well as the frame ground connection. [ I'm one that likes a extra ground from frame to transmitter ].
I too like low amperage chargers like a trickle charger.

[RobertB]

Just a comment on trickle charges. I bought "battery maintainer"s for my cars but on another forum for MG owners a friend posted several instances of these causing fires.

Especially bad if the car is your "baby" and even worse if it's in the garage attached to the house.

RobertB...no more maintainers for me.

[silversink]

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Hook up the batt. first then plug it in. A Batt. has explosive gasses coming from them when charging so when hooking up plug last when disconnecting plug first.

[johnbuckley]

and if colours enter into it RED is positive BLACK is negative.
( That's colors to you guys!)

[Patrick L.]

I'm not a big fan of maintainers. I like old low amp chargers and when used as a 'maintainer' I just hook them up every couple months and try to set them off away from everything.

[SDJason]

I HAD a Battery Tender on mine - until one day when I decided to check the water level on the battery and noticed the sure signs of overcharging - all sorts of acidic goop had gradually built up over a few months and was piled up on top of the battery.

Now, I just don't worry about it; unless for some reason the car starts sluggishly, I'll assume the battery is good to go - and if that does happen, then I'll attach the trickle charger for a bit, until its indicator LEDs say the battery is fully charged. I also run one of the Fun Projects voltage regulator, which also helps keep the battery charged properly, I assume.

[Keith True]

When I see the words,automatic,floater,maintainer,or if a charger has lights to indicate level of charge I run the other way.I had a Deltrans automatic maintainer melt down while laying on the top of the engine.It didn't hurt anything but itself.I see no reason to leave a charger on a battery.Once in a while I may throw a trickle charger on a battery for a few hours toward the end of the winter,but only if I think of it.I have a roadster that I put a used battery in back in 2002.It is STILL in there.I store that car 3 miles from here,and in the spring when I want to use the car I hook the trickle charger to it overnight before I try to start it.That was the first car I used the Fun Projects regulator on.I'll bet I haven't looked at the water level in the battery in years.That battery and one I got 14 years out of in a Ford Ranger have been the only two batteries that lasted that long for me.