> I thought it was toast because when putting the charger on > it the charger needle would not register any movement.
Generally that is a sign of sulfation on the plates. > for 24 hours and voltage climbed from 5.4 or so to 13.85. But you may still have a compromised battery. Sulfation effectively limits the amperage capacity of the battery. > I've read several times about ruining batteries through excessively > discharging them I have too. Not really sure about that, but if you see 12V instead of 12.6 I think you have about exhausted the battery. There is a chart I won't dig up that tells the % of charge at various voltages. The thing that kills most small bateries is sulfation. This occurs very fast when the battery is allowed to sit in a discharged state. I won't let my sit even over night while flat. I have a coupla de-sulfators that have restored some expensive batteries for me. They are middlin expensive but very useful to have around. Batteries that sit; like planes, lawn mowers, motorcycles, and RVs can be expensive if you haven't stored the unit correctly with a float charger. A trickle charger pumps a set small amount into the battery all the time. A float charger has just a trickle generally, but turns this off for a while when the battery is full. Harbor Freight has them on sale once in a while. There is a previous thread on this. GeoB
