question on if on-board charger is working

[Hoffer]

OK...so I have an on-board charger.

I hooked up a battery tonight that I know needs a charge bad. I hooked it up to my minnkota troller and it says to "recharge".

It is a starter battery though - not a deep cycle.

My charger has 2 lights...a blinking green power light and a red light that turns on when it is charging the battery.

I put my battery on the charger - and it just blinks green - NO red light indicating it is charging...

My question is does it somethimes take awhile before the charger will "cycle on"...or if the battery is pretty dead - should the red light indicating "charging" turn on right away?

Thanks for any advice....

(I did hit the 2 leads = positive and negative together real quick - just to see if I had a spark - hopefully indicating it is at least getting power...and it did spark...)

[Smellson]

I know my on board will not charge a completely dead battery. If I drain my battery DEAD I have to hook up a different charger to get a little juice to the battery before the on-board will start charging...no idea why, but thats how mine works.

[Hoffer]

well....I just figured it out!

I hadnt unplugged the power after letting it charge up my other batteries - which were now fully charged.

I had just unhooked the terminals and then hooked them on the dead battery.

I think the charger was just stuck in the "already charged" mode...

So, I unhooked the power for awhile. Then went back out and plugged the power back in - and wah-lah - the red "charging" light went on!

So, I think they just get stuck in that "off" mode and need to reset themselves. just unplugged the power for awhile and it is charging now! Nice. That was a relief - I thought it was maybe one more thing to fix on the never ending list of things that go wrong with a boat