An automotive break down can be a very stressful experience for a person. Whether en route to a family event, your job or just trying to beat rush hour traffic to make it home, many have a constant fear of their battery dying on them resting in the back of their head. While this problem is shared by many, the rest of these car owners are more than equipped with the knowledge of various approaches to recharging a car battery. Presented below are several approaches to recharging car batteries.
Jumper cables
These should be your first choice for putting some juice back into your battery. All you need is another car to loan some juice from and the car should be back up and running. After 20 minutes on the road, you should feel confident that you can drive the rest of the way. Note that jumper cables also tend to be short-term solutions as not all batteries can maintain a charge and it becomes inconvenient for everyone during every subsequent break-down.
Portable charger
While this takes longer than the jumper cable approach, it can be done solo. Simply attach red clamp to the red terminal and the black clamp to the black terminal. Plug the charger into a regular outlet, power it on and give it time* to charge. One benefit of modern technology is that current day battery chargers have LED displays to indicate when a battery is at full charge.
It could take eight or more hours for the charger to pump enough electricity into the battery for the car to be drivable.
Replace the dead battery
You tried jumper cables and that did not get you anywhere. You spent a good portion of your day using a portable charger and still garnered no progress. These are signs that you have a dead battery.
Replacing a car battery requires a few things:
- A decent amount of cash for the new battery.
- A basic wrench set. A 10mm model will normally suffice.
- Sandpaper for cleaning the terminals.
WARNING: Battery acid is corrosive and more than powerful enough to eat through clothing, let alone skin. The potential risk of exposure to acid is why any sort of battery replacement procedure should include some durable gloves and a set of old work clothes; wear whatever you don’t care would be eaten up.
