Battery won't charge

Factual Questions
1

I have a power on board batter charger. I have lost the instructions. I have a lawn tractor battery that is dead. when I hook up the charger, it charges for awhile and then I get an F01 error, don’t know what that means. This happens when I use 2,10, or 25 volt charging. The battery itself is maintenancee free, but I still wanted to check the fluid level Can’t seem to figure out how to get the top off, of course it is maintenance free, so perhaps I really can’t take it off. Is the battery likely shorted out and dead? Any advice on how I might renew it?

Thanks,

2

Here’s a site where you may be able todownload the manual. The error code probably tells you the problem. You may not be able to do anything with a sealed battery that is low on electrolyte, and any variety of other things could be wrong with it that can’t be fixed.

3

The battery may be too far gone to charge. The resistance may be too high or it may have an open cell. I assume it’s a 12 volt charger and battery. You might hook the charger up to your vehicle battery briefly and observe whether it works properly there. My guess is that it will. They you need to go shopping for a tractor battery.

4

I think you’ll find that 2, 10, or 25 AMPERES, not volts.

Right, you can’t take it off without essentially destroying the battery case. Checking the fluid level is not a feasible option.

As a general rule, if a battery won’t accept a charge from the charger, the battery is shot.

5

Well, it is working now. After trying to charge it with the trickle charger I hooked it up to the car battery and let it charge off of that. The battery was then still too week to use. However, when I then connected it to the trickle charger it charged overnight without complaint. Does anyone know why this might have occurred?

6

The battery may have been so low that the charger wasn’t able to detect that the battery was charging. I have heard that a completely discharged battery may be difficult to recharge at low current for some chemical reason. Or maybe the error code you received was about the charger overheating.

7

My considered opinion on this is once a battery starts to behave like yours you will probably save yourself some future headache by getting a new one now. It’s not as critical as a car battery as it obviously won’t leave you stranded, but you’ll at least be changing the battery on your schedule. Lead-acid batteries react badly to being discharged as low as yours evidently was.