->  TW> NO they are too small for charging on an Automobile Unit. Use
->  TW> a motorcycle battery charger.

-> even the 2amp charge is too much? i have a charger that has three amp settings
-> for charging with... 2, 10 and 50 IIRC... the 50 is only for starting boost and
-> only good for about 30 seconds...

In my Opinion YES 2 Amps would be Over the 1/10 Ah limit. Lead Acid or
Gell CEll batteries don't like overcharging at all.  Idealy you should
get an Automatic Charger desigend for the Battery. But lacking that DO
NOT just arbitrarily use a spare Wall Wart laying around. I use a unit
manfacturered by Schumacher that I found at Wal-Mart for those small
batteries. It is a 1.5 Amp Fully Automatic Battery Charger/Maintainer.
It will charge the battery and then cut back to a maintenance trickle
charge that makes up for any inherent internal self discharge. That was
you can leave the battery on the charger when ever it is not in use.
Doing this with the Standard Automobile charger would end up damaging
the battery.


-> ->> what's the best way to load test them to see if they are still
-> ->> good?

->  TW> Fully charge them and then put a 1 or 2 amp load and measure
->  TW> how long before the terminal voltage drops below 10 volts.
->  TW> As an example 1 amp for 10 hours would be 10 Ah. That would
->  TW> indicete a very good battery. Iusualy think of replacing
->  TW> non-critical batteries when the Ah is about 1/2 of the
->  TW> Battery rating.

-> hummm... how'm i gonna determine a 1 or 2 amp load to put on them? someone else
-> was telling me that maybe finding a 12volt light bulb of some wattage would
-> work...                        

A 10 or 15 Watt 12 volt light bulb would work. But typicaly Automobile
bulbs are not rated in Watts but Candle power. 
And rembember the Terminal voltage must bne coutinualy measured on the
Test Discharge and the test terminated when the battery voltage drops
to about 10 volts.
This really only needs to be done once to prove out a Used battery you
pick up to give you an idea where you are IF a specified running time
of the load is critical..
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