Charger says "abnormal cycle"

[Mike Mac]

97 g19 charger says "abnormal cycle" on the charger and won't charge to full charge. Aluminum charger with LED lights on it.

What is the cause, and what do I do?

Thanks Mike

[BigBlockMan]

How old are the batts?

[Mike Mac]

i believe 08

[Mike Mac]

This belongs to a friend of mine (this is the car in my signature album). Said it will not hold a charge more than 4 days with out being on the charger. I'm wondering if the voltage reducer (for the lights etc.) may have a short and killing off those 2 batteries it is connected to.

He failed to mention that it had this problem before I tore it down to frame and started to rebuild, so I did not cause this problem. Thank God!!

thanks Big

[BigBlockMan]

more than likely the light killed those batts and now the charger can not get to required voltage to turn off. Do a little battery checking. could be time for a new set. Ouch...

[smallblock450sl]

So the battery charger "turns on"? Yellow light on and you can hear the transformer "buzzing"?, then it goes to abnormal? I ask because the battery set must have over 44 volts for the charger to sence it is plugged into a car to turn on. I adimitly recommmend charging the car after use and leaving it plugged in till the next use (not 4 days of running, then charge). MAC charger's are "fully automatic", meaning as deep cycle batteries sit...they lose voltage, that charger will turn it self on and off as needed to get the voltage back up. One bad thing about fully automatic chargers, if the ac power should be interupted, the cycle stops till ac power is returned and the dc cord is unplugged and replugged in to start the whole cycle again. Tom's right, all it takes is for one or two batteries to "drag" the whole set down. Volt meter and a hydrometer work well, a "download machine" will tell run time and testing voltage on each battery after "shutdown" will find the bad batteries. What make of batteries Mike?

[Mike Mac]

I borrowed the car to use in the ST.Pats. Parade tomorrow. It wouldn't run to get on trailer. Charged the 2 batteries that had the reducer on them just guessing that the reducer was at fault.

Charged 2, 8 volt batteries with a 12 volt charger for an hour because the 48 volt charger wouldn't charge the pack. Anyway after the hour, the big charger did pick up the pack, and I thought OK, its gonna work.

The big charger charged the pack for about 4 hrs. then stopped with the abnormal cycle light on.

Let it sit all night for the surface charge to settle, then checked pack voltage at 46.4 volts. Each battery has 7.7 to 7.8 volts. So I still don't know which batteries are bad, unless all are junk.

Don't remember what brand, but not trojan.

[smallblock450sl]

Originally Posted by Mike Mac

I borrowed the car to use in the ST.Pats. Parade tomorrow. It wouldn't run to get on trailer. Charged the 2 batteries that had the reducer on them just guessing that the reducer was at fault.

Charged 2, 8 volt batteries with a 12 volt charger for an hour because the 48 volt charger wouldn't charge the pack. Anyway after the hour, the big charger did pick up the pack, and I thought OK, its gonna work.

The big charger charged the pack for about 4 hrs. then stopped with the abnormal cycle light on.

Let it sit all night for the surface charge to settle, then checked pack voltage at 46.4 volts. Each battery has 7.7 to 7.8 volts. So I still don't know which batteries are bad, unless all are junk.

Don't remember what brand, but not trojan.

I normally find, after "force chargeing" the batteries (to get them over 44 volts) and then useing the 48 volt charger, the first time it will go abnormal. The second time useually goes thru full cycle.