Need recommendations for a battery charger

The new smart chargers are great but be aware that there can be instances with a discharged battery that a smart charger just shuts down and won't charge it. I have run across this on several occasions.

More than once I have been able to resuscitate an old discharged battery with an old school type charger and then finish charging with the newer style smart charger.
 
I have bought and use a couple of the cheap no-name red plastic ones. The problem is mostly that the cords are short and flimsy. The internal electronics and the charging logic is decent.

If a battery is too low for an automatic charger to start, temporarily connect a good battery in parallel with it with jumper cables. The automatic will have enough voltage to start and charge them both together. After a few hours you can disconnect the other battery.
 
Ausfahrt said:
The new smart chargers are great but be aware that there can be instances with a discharged battery that a smart charger just shuts down and won't charge it. I have run across this on several occasions.

More than once I have been able to resuscitate an old discharged battery with an old school type charger and then finish charging with the newer style smart charger.
Click to expand...

Hook up another battery in parallel to the battery you want to charge, and then the "smart" charger will start. Remove the good battery a couple minutes after the charger gets going, and you should be good to go.
 
Sayjac said:
I like my NOCO 2 amp, gets the job done. Does everything I need it to in a speed that's decent. I got it from Amazon on a Black Friday promo sale 2+ years ago. I've also read good things about the NOCO 5 amp, currently ~$20 more than the 2 amp.
Click to expand...
I've used a 1.5 or 2 amp Schumacher and it works very well. No issues getting even a big truck battery from normal usage levels up to fully topped off within 6 to 10 hours.
 
Ausfahrt said:
The new smart chargers are great but be aware that there can be instances with a discharged battery that a smart charger just shuts down and won't charge it. I have run across this on several occasions.

More than once I have been able to resuscitate an old discharged battery with an old school type charger and then finish charging with the newer style smart charger.
Click to expand...
IIRC: Some of the newer ones have an override to force charge really dead batteries.
 
I have been using CTEK for many many years on my bikes & car. I think it has the best charging program and they give comprehensive onfo about it unlike other manufacturers
 
I bought a 1A Noco to keep my 3 cars happy - $30 I think? Works fine to top up overnight. I have a jump pack for if I ever need to boost.

I would like to get the Noco 5A but so far have never really needed it.
 
^ The one amp Noco "Genius" or whatever they call it is rated for smaller capacity lead acid batteries per its instructions. I'm not sure it can effectively "desulfate" or whatever "therapy" it offers batteries on a full size 90 AH car battery.

It will trickle charge and turn the LED green though.
 
Schumacher is good name brand charger.
Click to expand...
I used to think the same thing.
I bought a 1.5A Schumacher maintainer off Amazon and it boiled my bike battery dry and ruined it, 6 months old. The second pic is what it was putting into the new replacement battery, which at the time was fully charged btw. The replacement charger was actually putting more into the new battery, I never took a pic of that. It was actually boiling the battery.
The first pic is the replacement charger, notice the label is upside down as the LED's visable thru the label are supposed to project thru the three areas that tell you their purpose. No big deal, I was able to peel the label off and flip it over.
I contacted them three times and was ghosted, not a peep from them. Now the tender is about 1/2" think as I took a sledgehammer to it vowing to neve buy another Schumacher product.
My replacement maintainers are now Deltran battery tenders. Knock on wood no problems yet.

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