Any recommendations for trickle chargers?

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: dparm
The CTEK 3300 seems to be popular too.


The CTEK charges are very nice. This Solar Brand 1002 charger is what I have on my F-150. I use it to keep the charge up in the winter (I plug it in when I plug in the block heater) and I keep it plugged in all summer when it's not moving. Using this charger, my last battery lasted ten years. You definitely cannot go wrong with the price, either.

 

[Y_K]

I have one inexpensive Schumacher and two Batteryminders, one of which is connected to a monocrystalline solar panel. Both the expensive set-up and the budget one work well. Schumacher manual also claims desulphation mode, btw.

 

[buickman50401]

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-Spe...indingMethod=rr

I have the older version of that (about 5 years older). It sets tucked under the hood of my Taurus pretty much year round. The Taurus rarely gets driven and sets in the driveway under a car cover for most of the year. During the winter it might get driven once for a week around Christmas. In the summer it gets driven about once a month.

$19

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: Quest
luv my CTek that does float/trickle charging.

I personally do not see the need of going back to my old schmacher transformer-based charger anymore, citing the rather ancient/archaic designs, which no longer serve my needs.

I'm now a fully converted, switch-mode based charger guy for anything rechargeables.

Q.


I almost agree. But I have come across some pretty dead batteries that I needed to start off on an old style charger and bring up the voltage a bit, then switch to a newer one to finish it up. The newer ones would say there was a battery fault/problem and abort.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: Quest
luv my CTek that does float/trickle charging.

I personally do not see the need of going back to my old schmacher transformer-based charger anymore, citing the rather ancient/archaic designs, which no longer serve my needs.

I'm now a fully converted, switch-mode based charger guy for anything rechargeables.

Q.


I almost agree. But I have come across some pretty dead batteries that I needed to start off on an old style charger and bring up the voltage a bit, then switch to a newer one to finish it up. The newer ones would say there was a battery fault/problem and abort.


Same here. The newer "smart" chargers like the line produced by Vector under various labels (Black and Decker, Peak, etc) will refuse to recharge an otherwise good but dead as a doornail battery.

My little Shcumacker 1.5A trickle/float charger or the Stanley I have that is similar will charge a completely dead battery enough in a few hours so that when a "smart" charger is hooked up to it the smart charger will then commence charging the battery the remainder of the way instead of throwing a fault code.

That is the one drawback of the new smart chargers. They see a dead battery as having an internal short or dead cell rather than just the fact that it is dead.

 

[Chris142]

If your charger won't work on a dead battery you can hook jumper cables to a good battery and to the dead battery to fool the charger. After an hr or so you can remove the cables.

 

[tonycarguy]

I have this one which I bought at Sears on clearance.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Diehard-6A-Automotive-Battery-Charger/16550307

Works fine except the fan always runs, even in maintenance mode. Once it reaches maintenance mode I remove it and attach the HF $5 charger to maintain 12.7V

BTW, regarding the HF $5 charger: If you drive your car, then wait a day, the batt voltage will drop to 12.55 due to parasitic load. The HF charger will not be able to bring it back to 12.7V, even though the battery is 99% charged.

 

[Errtt]

All I been using is:
Deltran Battery Tender Plus (mainly for the motorcycles)
BatteryMinder 12248 - 2/4/8-amp, AGM/Flooded/GEL... only thing is on this one, if I loose power when I have it on a AGM battery, sometimes after the power returns, I find it defaults to a GEL setting. Although that setting is something like .2V lower, still its a bit annoying - especially as much as it cost I would have hoped it wouldn't do that.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
If your charger won't work on a dead battery you can hook jumper cables to a good battery and to the dead battery to fool the charger. After an hr or so you can remove the cables.


Such a thing has happened to me, but rarely. I have one of those microprocessor controlled charges, and it wouldn't touch a stone dead commercial battery; the charger would throw an error after about two minutes. I threw the old 10 amp charger on for about 15 minutes, then disconnected it and put the microprocessor controlled charger on. Then it worked dandy. Fortunately, the battery wasn't ruined already.

 

[InvalidUserID]

I have a Battery Tender Jr that I have hooked up to my Camaro and it works fine. Very simple to use and keeps the battery charged with minimal action other than plugging it in.