Decent battery charger

[5030]

The Schumacher just started smoking when I plugged it in, smelt like my ex wife’s cooking and the other one won’t even come on at all.

Nothing beats the stink of burning rice paper and cheap insulation....

 

[5030]

I have one of those TSC wheeled chargers, think I paid 80 bucks for and it's 10 years old and keep on trucking but I use Yuhasa battery tenders for maintainers.

I added a muffin fan in the wheeled charger to keep the transformer alive and not stinking...

No stink yet...lol

 

[grsthegreat]

I bought a wheeled NAPA branded charger wirh 2,10,40 and start capabilities. Funny think was it came without a timer. I mean really….lets place a 40 amp charger on a lead acid battery and not include a timer. I could visualize the explosion. So i added a spring wound timer. Ive used it a few times to help start a dead vehicle, otherwise it sits idle for 10 years.

 

[5030]

I could visualize the explosion.

I can visualize a boiled dry battery and electrolyte all over everything.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I've never had a Schumacher go bad. Some here are from 1992 because I remember buying them. I wouldn't chunk an old one. New ones charge different.

 

[5030]

I've never had a Schumacher go bad. Some here are from 1992 because I remember buying them. I wouldn't chunk an old one. New ones charge different.

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

 

[John_Mc]

Without a doubt, the best chargers/maintainers I have found are made by BatteryMINDer. I started with an aviation specific one, to extend the life of a very expensive 24V battery in our Cessna 172. I did a ton of research before buying and was impressed with what I read. It worked well enough that I bought one of their small 1.3 Amp battery maintainers to use on my tractor battery in the winter. That maintainer is now 20 years old and still going strong. (My original aviation charger was fried by a lightning strike. I've since replaced it with a newer model.)

All of their chargers have temperature compensation, which varies the charging and float voltage to to the optimum value for the ambient temperature. The also have a full-time desulfation circuit. At this point, I probably own 6 different BatteryMINDer charger/maintainers of varying models, including several varieties of low-amperage maintainers (including a weather proof maintainer that I now use on my tractor.) I now use on and a couple of their higher end chargers (the higher end ones have selectable amperage and selectable charging profile to optimize for various battery types.) All of them can be left connected to the battery continuously without damage.

NOCO also makes very good chargers, some of them quite weather/waterproof. They include temperature compensation and desulfation. The only gripe about their chargers is a rather minor one: Their desulfation circuit is only active during charging. Once the battery is charged, and the charger switches to float/maintenance mode, the desulfation circuit is turned off. It's a minor concern, since sulfation generally occurs when a battery is left partially discharged, a battery which is regularly on the maintainer will not have heavy sulfation to deal with. I bought one of there dual bank chargers (10 amps each bank) so that I could charge each of the 12V batteries in my 24V antique truck independently.

 

[rScotty]

Without a doubt, the best chargers/maintainers I have found are made by BatteryMINDer. I started with an aviation specific one, to extend the life of a very expensive 24V battery in our Cessna 172. I did a ton of research before buying and was impressed with what I read. It worked well enough that I bought one of their small 1.3 Amp battery maintainers to use on my tractor battery in the winter. That maintainer is now 20 years old and still going strong. (My original aviation charger was fried by a lightning strike. I've since replaced it with a newer model.)

All of their chargers have temperature compensation, which varies the charging and float voltage to to the optimum value for the ambient temperature. The also have a full-time desulfation circuit. At this point, I probably own 6 different BatteryMINDer charger/maintainers of varying models, including several varieties of low-amperage maintainers (including a weather proof maintainer that I now use on my tractor.) I now use on and a couple of their higher end chargers (the higher end ones have selectable amperage and selectable charging profile to optimize for various battery types.) All of them can be left connected to the battery continuously without damage.

NOCO also makes very good chargers, some of them quite weather/waterproof. They include temperature compensation and desulfation. The only gripe about their chargers is a rather minor one: Their desulfation circuit is only active during charging. Once the battery is charged, and the charger switches to float/maintenance mode, the desulfation circuit is turned off. It's a minor concern, since sulfation generally occurs when a battery is left partially discharged, a battery which is regularly on the maintainer will not have heavy sulfation to deal with. I bought one of there dual bank chargers (10 amps each bank) so that I could charge each of the 12V batteries in my 24V antique truck independently.

I use a BatteryMINDER myself. One of the older 2/4/8 amp AGM, Flooded, or Gel cell selectable model 12248 - Which reminds me.... does anyone still run Gel cell batteries?
Anyway, it's got to be 10 years old, maybe 15. Like the Aviation model this MINDER has full time desulfation and also temperature compensation. It earns a vote for being remarkable at keeping batteries up and even revived a couple that I thought were dead.
I was so impressed that I bought a couple for friends.

But it loses a vote because at the time it was the only one like itself, but now it isn't much changed and BatteryMINDER is expensive compared to other types that advertize that they do all the same things.
My expectation was the price wouyld go down after a decade or so and irked it went up instead.
Now I could use a couple for other toys and just haven't wanted to plop down $200+ apiece.
rScotty

 

[number two]

Don't count out Associated chargers.
Good Quality!
Popular with fleets.

 

[lman]

I've got a couple of these and have no complaints.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W8KJH44/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1