Kinda trickle charge with 6 amps?

[GasSavers_Minger]

I have a charger in my garage that does 6 amps at its lowest setting...Was wondering if it'd be alright to trickle charge it with that, and for how long in my civic? I was wondering today because 3 out of the 6 times I started the car today, the speedometer shook for a seconad and the trip odometer reset...which is weird, because its only ahppened on occasionas where the battery has been very low...weird.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

Normaly a trickle charger is 1 to 2 amps or less for automotive batteries, and 1/4 to 1/2 amp for large motorcyle batteries, riding lawn mowers, and other batteries that you might have sitting over winter.
I think your civic has around 45-50amp hour battery, so assuming you a loss of 20% in heat a 6amp charger should have a low battery fully charged in about 10 hours, less if it's not fully discharged.
A few things to check: the cables that connect to your battery should be clean and snug, if they are not snug then you will have simaler simtoms as a dieing battery, if they have alot of oxide on the connections you can get a nifty little brush for cleaning the posts and cables from any auto parts store.
Next! check the water/acid leavle in your battery, unless it's a sealed battery it should have a cover on the top of it, while wearing old cloths and safty glasses (battery acid gives chemical burns to skin and clothing) if you pop that off you will find 6 holes, with a flashlight carfully look in to each of those holes and make sure that the water based acid is above the leavle of the lead plates, if it is not then very carfully add distilled water (never tap water as it has minerals that will kill your battery), this should bring a bit of life back to your battery and make it last longer.

[JanGeo]

You can charge it with that charger but you should get a volt meter on it as well to not let the battery voltage go over 14.25 volts for too long. You should hear some gassing and bubbling when the battery is over 14 volts. WHat you are looking for is for ALL the cells to be bubbling so that you have all the cells fully charged - it sounds like a cell or two are not charging - check for low or high acid levels in cells and add distilled water to the low ones.
Chances are that the charger will overcharge the battery if left on too long - more than 10-12 hours depending upon how much your battery is in need of charging. Don't worry about the current since it will drop off as the battery gets up to 14 volts any way but check for too much voltage and battery getting warm.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Actually the voltage where damage occurs is dependant on battery temperature. So you can get away with leaving it charging in an unheated garage overnight and letting it climb as high as 16V in winter (Presuming it's hovering around freezing or under in your locale)