Battery chargers. Opinions

[Paddy]

So, Like many of you I'm sure, I have a pile of battery chargers. I'm just talking about the automotive types with clips that you put on cars when they dead. Well, I kinda got pissed at several of them and tossed them in the trash. It's time for a new charger. I know good names that I've come to trust like Schumacher, xantrex, etc. but a quick look on Amazon sent my head spinning. Here's my wish list:


20+amps 12v constant charge capability.
Auto 3 stage charging
Rugged case
Digital readout

Anyone have any suggestions or input on this? I'd like to keep it as inexpensive as possible, because I'm painfully cheap. Thanks!

 

[IdaSHO]

I only have Schumacher chargers.


If the battery is actually flat, Ive found even the intelligent Schumacher charger that I have will not revive them.

This is the intelligent one I have.

http://www.batterychargers.com/sc-8020a/

For 90% of the battery duties, it works great. Fast, smart, and works.

But Ive yet to be able to revive a dead battery with it.

In those instances, I have to resort to my old school transformer manual charger.

This one...

http://www.batterychargers.com/se-1010-2/

Hook it up, and leave it overnight. So far I have a 100% success rate. And once revived, the intelligent charger works on these batteries.




Finally, for long term maintenance, I use a 1.5A maintainer.

http://www.batterychargers.com/se-1-12s/

 

[DaveInDenver]

Big fan of the IOTA DLS-45/IQ4 I have for this. Doesn't have a read-out though, just steady LED for float and different blinking rates to indicate it's doing bulk, absorption or an equalization. It does an equalization automatically every 7 days if you leave it on the battery, otherwise it's a regular 3-stage charger with 45 amps in bulk. They have cheaper models, the DLS-30 and DLS-15. Guess what their bulk current ratings are...

 

[dwh]

Couple years ago, I bought the Stanley 15a smart charger just to play with the desulfation feature. (Which actually does work.) It was like 50 bucks at Lowe's.

Liked it enough that I bought the 6a unit to carry around in the truck. (30 bucks.)

The Black & Decker is actually made by the same outfit and has the same guts. If I was doing it again, I'd get the 25a unit:




https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01B...webp_QL65&keywords=automotive+battery+charger


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00K...ry+charger&dpPl=1&dpID=416JOJNmM0L&ref=plSrch



It does need the battery to have at least 2v in it, so the charger can do the reverse polarity check. If it can't do the RP check, it won't power up the leads.

I still have my Shauer 10a that is probably 40 years old. It'll fool the smart charger into firing up, then I can just unhook it and let the smart charger do its thing.

 

[DaveInDenver]

LOL, dwh, did you notice the lead time on the BC25BD in your second link? Says "Usually ships within 4 to 5 months." Probably just means it's superseded to the other one. Not sure what they changed to the BC25BS, which is in stock. Appears to have all the same specs and features so I'd guess just redesign for component obsolesce or something. It does look like a good match for the OP's criteria.

 

[dwh]

I just grabbed some quickie links. Didn't actually read them.

Now that I do, I see the specs on the B&D don't mention desulfation/reconditioning. Mebbe that's the diff.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Feature tables for the various B&D chargers.

 

[Paddy]

Oh man 45amps and desulfurization would be nice. Is the desulper mode just pulsing increased voltage like 30v? I definitely want to be able to revive a dead flat battery, but, I still have somewhere a 6a old schooled charger I can trick it with as mentioned so that's not a deal breaker and I've had to do that before with my maintainers.
Thanks for the tips I can research these tonight.

 

[Paddy]

I like the rack-mount style of those BD chargers. Wow, also, my procrastination seems to have paid off in this case, as these fancy chargers were 2-3x as expensive a few years ago. Yay me.

 

[chet6.7]

[h=1]I recently got the Stanley BC25BS 25 Amp charger,I like it so far.I have not used it on a fully discharged battery,I just top off the 2 batteries in my truck as I use it on short runs sometimes for a a few weeks before getting time to make a longer run.
I have been using it instead of the CTEK 7002.[/h]

 

[dwh]

Desulfation is usually done by pulsing an alternating current at a high alternating freq to cause vibration in the plates.

No idea how the Stanley does it. You turn it on and a 24 hour timer starts counting down. I do know it won't charge while it's doing that, so charge the battery first.

I also know that an old, thrashed, useless battery I had sitting around to use for a core did actually get a bit better (not good, but a little better), after eight or a dozen or something 24 hour desulfation cycles.

So I figure running the defrag once a month or more won't hurt anything and might actually help. A bit. Maybe.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I have two ways to desulfate or equalize batteries.

One is the equalization stage on the IOTA, which does the process that probably has the least aggressive. This is to raise the voltage above bulk (say 15V to 16V) for a short period and limit current (generally said to be 5% of capacity at most). I have a group 27 AGM that's been on this charger almost 24/7 for about 10 years now I guess. I can't inspect the plates to know for sure but the battery still holds a good charge and has plenty of capacity. But it's not heavily used, mainly it's what runs my ham radio station and fridge when it's not in the truck, so it mostly just floats since we don't lose power much. It's possible that a battery that floats in its happy place would never sulfate extensively anyway.

I also have a stand-alone desulfation device, currently using a Power Pulse, that implements the technique described by dwh, which is to resonate the plates and is said to vibrate the plates within the cell. This is claimed to 'shake' the ions up and break down the crystalline build-up. There are various circuits you can look up but this one seems to be a variation that runs at about 25KHz with short rise time (in the tens of μs) positive going pulse and slow fall times.

You get opinions ranging from they are complete bunk to the best things ever. I continue to run desulfations, it seems to be helping (my Optima in the old truck was 8 years old) or at least not harming anything. Now both of these are running continuously. In the case of the Power Pulse it literally is always on running all the time from the battery power itself and the IOTA method is periodic, once every 7 days the charger does the equalization.

From my experience I could draw the conclusion that it's something that either needs to be done all the time or at least might take some time to achieve. Most desulfation tests to recover weak batteries seem to run for weeks or even months and results are hardly conclusive. I'm not sure it's a critical thing to be honest, but I can't complain about the life I get from my batteries, either.

 

[plainjaneFJC]

I've always had good luck with the basic cheap units like the old fashioned Schumacher. Only vehicle with fancy batteries is the boat and it has a built in charger for the front 3 batteries. The back 2 are AGM, do I need a fancy charger?

 

[DaveInDenver]

do I need a fancy charger?

Nope. AGM, like any other chemistry, just make sure you match the profile with what the manufacturer recommends. In general AGM is very similar to flooded types but you need to watch temperature, voltage and current a little closer because overheating is worse. It's not something you can recover from easily by adding back electrolyte that's boiled off so damage is permanent.

 

[Paddy]

If it says Schumacher it isn't cheap compared to the units I have. So, no, you don't need s fancy charger. But, if you're going to have to buy one, might as well get modern features and more power. That's my thinking at least.