How Do You Charge a Car Battery?
Tips & Support
- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Chargers
- Location
- Glendale, WI
We watch a lot of videos and read a lot of comments from people on how to charge a car battery. While some get it right, many get it wrong. Safety always comes first and any time you are working around car batteries, we recommend wearing eye protection. If a car battery is discharged to the point that it needs to be recharged, the best way to do that is with a car battery charger and not the vehicle's charging system. Alternators are designed to maintain batteries near a full state of charge, not recharge a deeply discharged battery, so don't think your battery will be fine, if you need a jump start with a jumpbox or jumper cables. Once you have a battery charger, here's a step by step process to charging a car battery:
1. Turn everything off- ignition, lights, etc... and remove the key from the vehicle
2. Connect the red clamp to the positive terminal on the battery
3. Connect the black clamp too the negative terminal or clean metal ground on the chassis
4. Plug the charger in and select the proper voltage (almost all are 12V)
5. Select the battery type (flooded/AGM/Deep-cycle, etc...)
6. Select the charging rate (the more amps the faster it will charge)
7. Monitor the battery (it may get warm, but if it gets hot to the touch, discontinue charging)
8. Once the battery is fully charged, turn off the charger, unplug it and disconnect the cables from the battery in reverse order.
Most 12V car batteries need to be charged to at least 12.6 to 12.8 volts to be fully charged. Some chargers are fully automatic, while other chargers require manual input for voltage, battery type, charge rate, etc... OPTIMA Chargers have easy to navigate pushbutton options that make charging car batteries a snap. You select the battery type and the charger does the rest. Once it reaches a full state of charge, the OPTIMA charger will automatically go into maintenance mode.
1. Turn everything off- ignition, lights, etc... and remove the key from the vehicle
2. Connect the red clamp to the positive terminal on the battery
3. Connect the black clamp too the negative terminal or clean metal ground on the chassis
4. Plug the charger in and select the proper voltage (almost all are 12V)
5. Select the battery type (flooded/AGM/Deep-cycle, etc...)
6. Select the charging rate (the more amps the faster it will charge)
7. Monitor the battery (it may get warm, but if it gets hot to the touch, discontinue charging)
8. Once the battery is fully charged, turn off the charger, unplug it and disconnect the cables from the battery in reverse order.
Most 12V car batteries need to be charged to at least 12.6 to 12.8 volts to be fully charged. Some chargers are fully automatic, while other chargers require manual input for voltage, battery type, charge rate, etc... OPTIMA Chargers have easy to navigate pushbutton options that make charging car batteries a snap. You select the battery type and the charger does the rest. Once it reaches a full state of charge, the OPTIMA charger will automatically go into maintenance mode.