trickle battery charger

Pulled all the seasonal batteries and put on a pallet. Went to trickle charge them and found the little charger dead. After only thirty years.

Its most similar to this:

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I have a large charger for starting. I need a unit for winter tending and recharging if the lights are left on and a battery goes down. Now, I've been mostly dissatisfied with horrible freight stuff.

Can anyone suggest an offer like above with a higher quality?

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend
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I inherited one of those big roll around ones like they use in garages. I don't know how I lived without it. Fast charge, slow charge, jump start, it will do it all, and not that expensive new.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Battery Minder. You can find them at most auto places. It's an intelligent charger. You can get them in a few types from wall wart size up to vehicle mounted.

Reply to
Steve W.

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Harborfreight charger seems to have pretty good reviews, might be worth a try for the money. Other than that I've heard the Battery Tender is good.

There is also this on board one:

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I'm kind of interested in, but for a few more dollars I can buy a Schumacher on board charger.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

I'm very happy with my Deltran Battery Tender Plus, had it 5-6 years now. Smart charger that charges at 6A until battery voltage gets to a threshold then charges at constant voltage until current drops to almost nothing to finish charging the battery, then it floats at a lower voltage to maintain full charge. The Jr model is 2A, the Plus is 6A max, available all over the web for about $40. I think they were one of the first companies to offer this type of battery maintainer but now lots of other brands offer the same programming. No switches or meters, if those are important to you. I put it on one battery for a few days or a week, then move it on to the next one when I remember; never have to worry about overcharging.

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

Reply to
Carl Ijames

I had a Deltran Battery Tender Jr, the 6-volt model. Bought new, it never worked.

The green/red indicator lights always lied about what was going on. Every time it was either doing nothing at all, or else actually draining my battery, while the happy green light said it was charging.

The generous warranty period was pretty worthless. It had to be shipped back to Florida, along with payment to Deltran for diagnosis, handling, return shipping, etc. ... added up to much of the cost of just buying another one.

After a year, I threw it in the trash. On the morning of trash pickup day my Dad saw it in the bin at the curb, and brought it back. So I smashed it real good with a hammer and threw it out again next week.

Reply to
Beryl

Ok, let me change that to "they've had a lot of good reviews and a few negative reviews too" :-)

I have been using a couple of the $20 Schumacher chargers from Wal-Mart. I haven't checked the charging voltage yet but they appear to do OK. I also have a Deltran Battery Tender Plus. I have bad batteries in my Ford 8N tractor and in my forklift, I'm wanting to have good float chargers before investing in new batteries, I don't like to have to replace batteries every year on equipment that doesn't get used but a few times per year.

I have been playing with Arduino microcontroller boards working toward making multi-chemistry battery chargers. If I get it going I plan to have temperature compensation to keep the batteries at the correct float voltage year around and perhaps charge the batteries to charge voltage once a day or so to simulate a car being ran every day. Not sure if it would be beneficial or not but it doesn't take much effort to try or disable.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

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Reply to
Don Foreman

Karl Townsend wrote in rec.crafts.metalworking on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:45:11 -0600:

Wall-Mart has a very good three stage 1.5A charger. Made by Shumacher(sp?). Can be left on all the time.

Reply to
dan

I've used a couple of these for two years, mine work fine. As with all HF stuff, check to see if it works correctly, these should put out about 13.2 to 13.3 V with no battery connected. They are a float maintainer only and won't charge a partially discharged battery but they will keep a charged battery in good shape over the winter.

WayneJ

Reply to
WayneJ

I'm not defending HF's charger since I'm not familiar with it. But any charger can boil a battery dry if the battery is sulfated.

Automatic chargers rely on battery voltage to determine state of charge and what current would be appropriate. A sulfated battery will exhibit lower voltage and fool the charger into overcharging.

Reply to
Don Foreman

Karl, are you wanting to charge them all in parallel? If so, I'd look at the DSR Pro series from Schumacher. They make some nice stuff for the purpose, but might be pricey. If your batteries are mostly of the same approx size and amperage,

Reply to
RBnDFW

If I get my microcontroller float charger working like I hope to, I'm wanting to make it so it will work with multiple batteries. It should be able to float charge 4 to 8 12V batteries from 1 charger.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

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