![]() This is highly discharged but usually still recoverable. This usually means that your battery is sulfated, which happens when it sits for a long time (not charging) or is deeply discharged when it shouldn't be. If your Optima is in this range and you think it should be charged, it's not taking or not holding a charge. This is your first reading - here's how to interpret it:ġ2.7 - 13.2 volts - NORMAL with 100% chargeĪnything in this range means that you have normal charge and you're in the right range for an Optima. Put the red probe on the positive Optima terminal and the black probe on the negative Optima terminal. To begin, switch your multimeter to 20VDC or whatever will get your multimeter reading somewhere in the range of 12 volts DC. (The point here is that you didn't just pull the Optima out of your shed where it's been sitting for the last 6 months, or that you're not testing it after using it to power the disco ball at your neighbor's midnight rave party. What we mean by this is that it should be in whatever state you think is charged, whether that means that it's been on a charger for a bit or that you just drove around for a while. Use a wrench to make clamps and other connections reasonably tight (but not so tight that you damage a battery post!).īad connections and particularly bad grounds are one of the easiest problems to fix but often one of the last things that we check! Always check your connections first! Test the Voltage Firstīefore you start, make sure your Optima is "charged". Sometimes they are bare wire.Ĭlean corrosion with sandpaper so that you connect to clean, bare metal. Checking any grounding straps - these will often go from the engine block to the body and/or from the engine block to the frame.Checking your negative battery cable for tightness and corrosion.Checking your starter and main power feeds for tightness.Jiggling your negative battery clamp (lightly!) and looking for white powder.Jiggling your positive battery clamp (lightly!) and looking for white powder.This is probably one of the most common problem people have with batteries, but it's often not checked. No one knows how to build the highest quality and best-performing spiral-wound batteries better than OPTIMA.For some reason, many of us overcomplicate our solutions and diagnosis of problems (We do it here at Roundforge too!).īefore assuming your Optima has gone bad, check your battery connections for corrosion and tightness. 12-volt OPTIMA batteries are made of six SPIRALCELL cells, each having a fully charged open circuit voltage of 2.2 volts for deep-cycle batteries and just over 2.1 volts for starting batteries OPTIMA has built more than 100 million individual spiral cells since the early 1990s.This ensures perfect and uniform compression once the SPIRALCELL is inserted and also avoids any potential contaminants or impurities from pre-used plastic OPTIMA batteries' precision-molded cylindrical cases are manufactured to such tight tolerances that only virgin polypropylene can be used.Each completed SPIRALCELL ends up looking somewhat like a precisely wound “jelly roll.” Critical tolerances, temperatures, humidity and automated processes are maintained and constantly monitored.Custom automated cell-winding machines are required to maintain the close tolerances required to maintain quality and performance The unique manufacturing process of spiral winding continuous lead plates is far more precision-controlled and expensive than building traditional flat-plate AGM batteries.The two plates get a proprietary separator (this key component is actually made of a micro-fiberglass blend that feels like fine cotton) that performs two critical functions: keeps the two plates from touching, and holds the electrolyte in a uniform suspension.Each lead plate is manufactured as a continuously cast strip that maintains critical thickness tolerances.
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