yippee

Here's a silly question, but since I don't know anything maybe somebody can explain it.
My 36V battery charging is getting a little finicky. Today I had to play a little with the plug for the charger to go to red. Since I had to go out and didn't want to come back to any charred remains, I unplugged the battery and the charger while the charger light was still red. Came back, plugged everything in but the charger wouldn't go back to red to finish the charge (if it needed completing). So I pulled out my trusty multimeter and measured the voltage of the 36V battery, but I put the leads on reversed (I guess) because the voltage reading was -42 (negative). Everything's good because that's (I understand) the fully charged voltage of my 36V battery. The thing is if I reverse the leads to get a positive voltage reading from the meter the voltage oscillates between 40.1 and 41 volts. Isn't that strange? What do you think is causing the different voltage readings?

2old

My guess would be the volt meter. Try the same thing with the charger; should verify the culprit.