broken ignition lock

[Infident]

alright this is helpful, thanks! so if I'll leave it charging overnight, it won't overcharge it? does the battery (or charger) have some protection or failsafe or anything like that?

[cancunia]

alright so I took the battery off, put it charging with a wall adapter charger but, and I'm still bad with cars, it started charging and told me it's 12.3v and after a minute, it was 13v.
 is that bad? am I going to overcharge it? and if it's already 12v, why does it feel so weak when attempting to start the car

If your battery charges up after only a minute, it could be faulty. What is the voltage when you let the battery off charge overnight?

[Infident]

I haven't got the chance to charge it overnight yet, just removed it this morning and stuck it on a charger before school. I don't know about the health of the battery, but it worked fine before I left it in a pile of snow for weeks.

[cancunia]

At least you have the ignition lock working again!

[Infident]

you're right! I'm happy about that, at least now I can tow the car!

[SinsBird]

Put your ear close to the charging battery, if it's making noise, it's full. A good fully charged battery after sitting for some time will have open circuit voltage above 12.6 V . While charging the voltage should go up to 14.4V at 25C ambient temperature. Whether the charging stops depends on if you have a 'dumb' charger or not.

[Sol]

Is this a proper car battery charger you are using? Not just some Chinese wall plug thing? Charging is indicated by the current being drawn. A fully charged battery draws little to no current. A flat battery will draw as much as it can get from the charger. Most domestic chargers for car batteries will be 3 to 5 Amps. A bigger one will be 10 Amps and will take all night to charge a dead battery. A 3 to 5 Amp one will take 24 hours.

This is the actual method of telling whether it is charging, is charged, or neither.

[SinsBird]

I'm not aware of any 'proper' chargers on the market that would set the required charging voltage based on the ambient temperature. I'm using a bench power supply for maximum properness. The sound method is for those who don't have measuring equipment.

[Sol]

I'm not aware of any 'proper' chargers on the market that would set the required charging voltage based on the ambient temperature. I'm using a bench power supply for maximum properness. The sound method is for those who don't have measuring equipment.

I'm not sure where you are going with that. (respectfully)

I was asking the OP @Infident if they were using a charger designed for car batteries as it will have an ammeter on the front. They seemed to suggest that they were using a wall wart type of charger ("wall adapter charger") which is normally not suitable for charging lead-acid car batteries. 

If its a toy charger, putting out 12V @ 0.5 to 1A for example, it would 1-2 weeks to charge a flat 70Ah battery, if it ever worked at all.

[Infident]

I'm using a relatively small charger @ 4A . I've charged the battery for a day and it went up to 13v