Optima Recharge
 

I have an Optima Yellow Top from 2007 that is holding a 13 plus volt charge. I have a Red Top from 2015 that was holding a good charge but is now down to 10.5 volts and will not charge higher. The Yellow one did this for a while but snapped back with a battery tender. I tried that with The Red top but no Dice.
Should I just give up on these buggers or does some have a magic bullet?

Re: Optima Recharge
 

Some of the newer battery chargers will not charge a battery if the voltage drops too low. If you have an older charger you may be able to use it to get it up (assuming no shorted cells or battery defects). If I have a problem battery I breakout my grandfathers charger and let it go for about 2 hours. That thing will cook a battery if you don't watch it!

Good luck, Rg

Re: Optima Recharge
 

the yellow top is back when optima was here and made awesome batteries.
the red top is when they went downhill and are in the place they are in now.

You can try your tender on one and then hook up battery cables to the other and that will equal the voltahe and let that tender do its job for a few days.
of course ++ and -- the tenders take a while when doing repairs, so with two battreis itll take some time. After a few days unhook the battery cables and try only charging/repairing the red top.

But, in the end, optimas look cool, ands that is a big reason every oned them, but nowadays there are better ones out there. Look up XS batteries.

Re: Optima Recharge
 

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Set the old school charger to the lowest amp setting (mine is 2 amps) until you see 12v and then switch to the smart charger.
Keep an eye on it and make sure the battery is not getting hot!

Re: Optima Recharge
 

The red top is a car battery. Other colors are for deep cycle use AFAIU like a boat. Sure, can be used in a car. But not what designed for. True story- our 1994 twin turbo 300ZX purchased new cooked batteries because of heat under hood. Factory went out in two years, replacement by dealer lasted one year. My wife was stranded and I purchased an Optima red top (97-98 still owned by Optima) Was a lot of money, recall around $200. It was in the car unill we sold it in 2008. True Optima changed hands and the batteries are not what they used to be. What is as good as it used to be these days?

Re: Optima Recharge
 

I don't have an old school charger. I have an old trickle charger for remote control car batteries. I bet that is low amps. Trouble is that its on a timer. I could probably zip tie the dial. Thank you all for responding. Will keep you posted. Has anyone tried the actual Optima charger? Expensive...

Re: Optima Recharge
 

I have the Optima 1200 (12a) and 400 (4a) chargers. The 400 seems to work better at bringing back batterys. The 1200 will not charge if battery is deeply discharged.

Re: Optima Recharge
 

I can't seem to get the Red Top past 10 volts. It gets warm too. I think it's toast.

Re: Optima Recharge
 

Well I gave it another shot. I connected the positive to positive and negative to a standard battery and then hooked up a battery tender to each of the batteries. The Harbor Freight 10 dollar kind. The Red Top is now taking a charge and holds about 12.4 volts. I have not done a load test on it but so far so good. Stay tuned for results.

Re: Optima Recharge
 

Well I checked on it this morning and it is back down to 10.7 volts. I am going to try a slight discharge and recharge to see if that works. Just experimenting at this point.