Decent battery charger

   / Decent battery charger #51  
Don't know about your old one. But I have 3 chargers and multiple battery maintainers and all of them have circuitry to not allow reverse flow. We have a lot of power outages and internet outages around here also!
All but one of my chargers are old school...a 12V transformer, a bridge rectifier and maybe a pilot light or ammeter. There may be a tiny bit of back leakage thru the diodes, but nothing that's ever been an issue.
These are all essentially trickle chargers, none will put out more than a couple amps. To prevent overcharging when being used as a maintainer I just put 'em on a timer, power on only 3-4 hr/day.
I have a lithium jump pack for when I need that functionality.
 
   / Decent battery charger #52  
No need to put modern smart chargers on a timer - at least not the good brands like BatteryMINDer, NOCO, and some others. You can just hook them up and forget them, leaving them attached for months.
 
   / Decent battery charger #53  
When I head south for 4 months every winter I hook up 6 Schumacher trickle chargers and I've never had a problem. 2 cars, 2 snowmobiles that are on 12 months, my tractor and my rider mower. All good.
 
   / Decent battery charger #55  
I've been quite happy with this Harbor Freight staple...

I bought one of those a few years ago, when my main heavy duty charger disappeared, (ended up in my neighbors garage, I guess we both forgot he borrowed it)
Anyway, the Harbor Freight one I bought is of rather low quality. It works, but if I put it on high charge, the needle jumps all over. I can only use it in 2 or 10 amp setting.
I found an older Schumacher my father in law had, it works great.
Often a good older model can be found for cheap at yard / estate sales.
 
   / Decent battery charger #56  
I'm not surprised that quality would vary from individual item to individual item, lol.
 
 
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