Decent battery charger

[newbury]

I am shopping for a new battery charger. I have bought two in the last two years and both are absolute crap. Just need one for my cars and mower, only really need a 12V charger. Was wanting some suggestions on a good brand and or model. I have a Schumacher that lasted three months and I heaved it in the dumpster, the other is a China made crap that also is now in the dumpster. I heard an Ampeak brand was good. Anyhow some opinions are welcome.

I've had a couple of Schumakers over the last 40 years. They served me well.
But some battery chargers require a minimum charge left on the battery before they will even kick on.
Trickle charger are great - IF you can provide electricity.

 

[stevem5215]

A decent battery charger will also help rejuvinate the battery and desulfinate as needed too. I've had good luck with buying this one on Amazon. I have several different models with this one being the latest.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GODGN9E

 

[Oaktree]

Impressed. Wish I had those skills.

Electronics has been my trade since I was in my mid teens, so something like this was a piece of cake.
I do marvel at the skills that others have that I don't...for example a neighbor of mine does auto body work, he's an absolute genius with metal fabrication. I wouldn't even know where to begin on things he thinks nothing of.

Nice! That's pretty bare bones for sure. Should work just fine on lead acid.

It does, it'll also work on batteries that are run down below the level that modern ones will work with.
Works well on AGM batteries too, though when I put it on one of them I use a timer to limit it to 3-4 hr a day.

I think it all has to do with the quality (or lack of) in the components.

That, plus the complexity of some of the fancier ones that will desulphate, etc.

One thing I haven't had much luck with is solar maintainers. I mostly use chargers in the winter when the vehicles see little use (or in the case of a snowmobile to get a couple more years out of a battery), so maybe there just isn't enough sunlight to properly keep the batteries up that time of year. There's a mountain to the SW of us so we don't get a lot of winter sun.

 

[scootr]

Never had much luck with solar chargers here either. We have plenty of sun. But we get a combination of dust and dew which covers the panels and reduces their exposure and output. So they become ineffective unless you wash them weekly - ugh
Easier to just charge the idle batteries every few months. I do have a the maintainer I posted earlier on the Mustang (5.0 6MT) in the upper garage. I find it beneficial to unplug and replug the charger occasionally so it goes through a full charge and then goes back to maintenance. This has been working for me for 3 or 4 yrs.

 

[5030]

One thing I haven't had much luck with is solar maintainers.

Neither have I actually. I've tried a couple with different outputs and blocking diodes and none of them worked worth a darn.

 

[5030]

On my tractors and my pickup truck which stays idle all winter, I installed break out switches on the negative battery terminals and I take the batteries out of circuit when sitting (make sure they are topped off prior to breaking out. Flooded cell batteries loose very little charge over the winter, so long as there is no parasitic loss from on board electronics. My tractors are 100% mechanical injection and while my truck isn't, all I need to do is reset the radio clock and pre set stations in the spring when I get it out.

The break out switches are also a very good theft deterrent when I leave them sitting in a field which I do often.

For me, batteries are a consumable item and they get renewed every 5 years and all the connections cleaned as well.

 

[cqaigy2]

On my tractors and my pickup truck which stays idle all winter, I installed break out switches on the negative battery terminals and I take the batteries out of circuit when sitting (make sure they are topped off prior to breaking out. Flooded cell batteries loose very little charge over the winter, so long as there is no parasitic loss from on board electronics. My tractors are 100% mechanical injection and while my truck isn't, all I need to do is reset the radio clock and pre set stations in the spring when I get it out.

The break out switches are also a very good theft deterrent when I leave them sitting in a field which I do often.

For me, batteries are a consumable item and they get renewed every 5 years and all the connections cleaned as well.

That's a good point too, battery disconnect will do away with a lot of those parasitic loses, as long as you aren't leaking across the top of a dirty battery.

 

[cqaigy2]

Not much experience with solar battery chargers, but one i did get from HF had a nice feature that would draw power from your battery to light up the blue LED on the charger. Turned out to be a good way to drain my battery, so i took it off and apart after have a dead battery a couple times. So basically, what the charger was, a solar panel, that was bit above 12ish volts in full sun, connected to your battery, with LED connected across it. So at night or low light, your battery was running the solar panel and LED.

I'd guess if you put a diode in series to prevent your battery from becoming the power source when the light got low.

 

[deserteagle71]

One thing I haven't had much luck with is solar maintainers. I mostly use chargers in the winter when the vehicles see little use (or in the case of a snowmobile to get a couple more years out of a battery), so maybe there just isn't enough sunlight to properly keep the batteries up that time of year. There's a mountain to the SW of us so we don't get a lot of winter sun.

Guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I bought a solar charger/maintainer from Northern Tool years ago and mounted the solar panel up on the barn roof. If I remember correctly, the panel is 15w. Most of the time it is attached to the battery on my Miller Bobcat welder which I use infrequently. As in, last week was the first time I'd used it in two years. The battery in that welder is 8+ years old and it still had plenty of juice to get the Bobcat fired up again after all that down time...reminds me I've got to drain that old gas out of the Bobcat and put in fresh.

But then this is Nevada. The sun shines a lot, and it is intense, even in the winter. Which probably makes a difference as to output of the solar panel.

 

[5030]

I'm sure it makes a difference.