I just ordered a Optima Yellow Top for my Rubicon. I was going back and forth between the Odyssey and Yellow but got a good price on the Yellow Top so went with it. Maybe a silly question but will a standard charger work on these batteries? I see they also sell "special" over priced chargers but will a normal trickle charger not work just as well? I have no experience with a deep cycle battery. Any other tips or things I should keep in mind would also be helpful.

 

I have a charger that trickles at two amps IIRC. The last two yellow tops I had are 10 years old and still take a charge. I should have kept them for this Jeep LOL.

 

Virtually any standard automotive battery charger on the market will charge an Optima battery just fine. However, most automotive battery chargers will not charge any battery that has been discharged below 10.5 volts. If a standard flooded battery is discharged below 10.5 volts, there’s not much of a chance that it will be serviceable again. However, AGM-style batteries can be recovered from a deeply-discharged state, by using an AGM-specific charger or by parallel charging.

To charge a deeply-discharged Optima with a regular charger, you can wire a second fully-charged automotive battery (12V+) to the discharged Optima in parallel (+ to + and – to –). Then hook up the charger to either battery, setting the charger at 10 amps for 2 hours and monitoring it frequently.

When the discharged Optima reaches 10.5 volts or more, remove the second battery and continue charging the Optima until fully charged

 

Thanks for the info Lorrel.

 

Yes thanks for the tips guys...

Found this video, pretty much what Lorrel already said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23zxrnyMAZc