# 12V Charger 8V Battery



## rmay635703 (Oct 23, 2008)

green caveman said:


> Sorry for the dumb basic battery question. I'm just trying to get to terms with lead acid batteries and the voltages you can use to charge them.


Its more or less the amperage you can use to charge up to a voltage cutoff point. The 2 are related using the wrong charger means you have to watch the battery and likely you won't be able to completely charge the battery. (or you will cook it and have to add lots of water)



green caveman said:


> If I put one of Lee Hart's Shunt Type Battery Balancer, a simple Zener system, onto an 8V battery to prevent overcharging, can I charge an 8V battery with a dumb 12V charger? Is there a cheapy 6V charger that puts out enough voltage to charge 8V batteries - or an 8V charger but these seem pretty expensive because they're specialized.


Sounds like an awefull lot of work to charge that battery and yes you can charge an 8v battery with a 12v dumb charger, especially if it is rated to 50amp and has a 2amp setting or better yet a 10amp 6v setting. Lee's setup might well overheat/fail unless you have a very slow/wimpy 12v charger.



green caveman said:


> If not, could I just put a 9V(10V?) power supply (wall wart) on the battery?


 Yes you can if it has a high enough output rating, you may make it go poof, especially if the battery is a little undervoltage at the moment. Trouble is those actually can go much higher than 9v over time and cook the battery albeit very very slowly.



green caveman said:


> Since these batteries are just sitting around, I'd like to get/keep them charged up, but don't want to spend a bunch of money on a charger that I won't have much use for once the batteries are in the car and it seems a lot of effort to string them all together and use the 96V charger.


If you have a 24v trickle (or can find one as they are more common than 96v) just group them in 3's.


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