goldie lox
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2015
- Messages
- 142
looking to get a multiple battery maintainer. looking at the noco brand, thoughts or recommendations
battery maintainer
- Thread starter goldie lox
- Start date
Leaflessshadetree
Well-known member
I have a few of the Battery Tender brand that do one battery each. I move them between vehicles. I've had the oldest ones for 10-15 years and haven't had any issue with them.
Additional cables and connectors are easy to buy (I have them installed on 3 motorcycles, a boat and 2 lawn tractors)most of my vehicles).
I thought about the multiple unit but didn't want to be limited on parking vehicles close to each other or tripping over cords. I also didn't want to have one device fail and be without.
Additional cables and connectors are easy to buy (I have them installed on 3 motorcycles, a boat and 2 lawn tractors)most of my vehicles).
I thought about the multiple unit but didn't want to be limited on parking vehicles close to each other or tripping over cords. I also didn't want to have one device fail and be without.
bob15
Well-known member
Cannot help you with noco brand, but have battery tender, battery minder, schumaker and auto meter and they all work just fine, with some over 15 years old. I say that in case you decided to go with separate tenders for each battery.
Motown
Well-known member
I have a couple Ctek's, been pretty happy with.
Ryan Wilke
Well-known member
I have a 25yr old Schumacher 6V/12V, 2A/10A charger. It works fine, but I am much happier with my latest toy - the CTEK (56-864) MUS4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger unit. I like the additional features of the Ctek 'smart charger'. No problems. - Ryan
HOTFR8
Banned
Sadly the C-Teks are now made in China.
LB-1911
ALLIANCE MEMBER
9C1
Well-known member
I have several Battery Tenders, one for two batteries. Never a problem. One is a decade old and still works fine. I have one C-Tek about 3 years old and I think it has gone TU. It is too cold to check it out now, though.
+1 for Battery Tender plus. I have two and an extension cable. For lawn tractor hooked up almost full time. Starter batterery on generator and vehicles that are not being driven a lot. I have knocked down both and they have the dings to prove it, but they just keep working. I think there is a new better sealed version, instead of the vented metal case. I got the second one at Costco on a super sale. I think it was $29. I'm guessing I would never get a break on that multi output unit
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I hve the old metal case one and two of the Costco. The Costco version at $29.99 for the last few holidays was impossible to pass up.
Is there a certain brand that concerns you? Most battery tenders are used inside buildings. I have one on my Corvette in my attached garage, for 5 years. I used one in my detached garage on my boat battery for about that long also. I would hope that if something shorted out, that my breaker would fail and be okay. Otherwise, I am insured. Do you have more facts. Thanks for the insight.
bugnut
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Have 3 of the noco, like them a lot. No issues. I have both 6v and 12v uses and the fact that they figure it out themselves I really like. Will buy more ends so I can hardwire the connections.
driftpin
Well-known member
I have three Battery Tenders of various models, for Christmas I got on of the Costco $29 models for a motorcycle, and another one, more-expensive, for use on my lithium ion batteries. I looked at the NOCO brand, sold at batteries+ but I went with an amazon purchase for the battery tender with the Li-Ion capacity.
HenryAZ
MEMBER EMERITUS
BatteryMINDER for my AGM batteries, as they have an AGM-specific model. Deltran Battery Tenders for the flooded batteries.
Htscheg
Well-known member
Have both the battery tender and the Noco brand, both work well and have been for atleast the last 5 years
ssffnomad
Well-known member
I have 3 Battery Tender JR’s. I like the units and bought extra charging cables. Don’t like switching the Alligator Clip cables. I just wish the Charging Cables with rings to leave connected to battery where longer. At 22” they are too short to leave sticking out of car grill. Would have to be like 40” long
fartymarty
Well-known member
I have had Deltran Battery Tender jr.s fail me two times, both with motorcycle batteries. They didn't burn up or anything, they just said the battery was fine.(steady green light)...and it wasn't. I still have them but they are just attached to spare batteries that I don't really give a **** about. The 2 batteries that are important are now on a XTREME CHARGE XC100-P and Optimate 5 maintainers respectively.
Davegvg
Well-known member
Prefer the optimates over all the other smart chargers I have.
1. wider AH range
2. lower recovery volts
3. wider temp range
Love my Ctek's but they don't have the specs the optimates do.
1. wider AH range
2. lower recovery volts
3. wider temp range
Love my Ctek's but they don't have the specs the optimates do.
Another vote for Optimates.
mudflap
Well-known member
I have had Harleys to maintain for the last 20 years, and never had any luck with Schumacher chargers. They show charged, when the batteries are not. I use the HD chargers, they work great.
Davegvg
Well-known member
I have them all over the place -never a worry.
I wouldn't set one on top of an open gas can but shy of that you won't have a problem.
Heres a Ctek, an Optimate and a Schumacher SP3 all in one storage area.
Each quad has an SP3
The Toyhauler bank has the ctek on it.
The car has an optimate.
The little car is the 4th vehicle and kept around for out of town visitors that need a car and sits on a maintainer year round otherwise.
UD
I wouldn't set one on top of an open gas can but shy of that you won't have a problem.
Heres a Ctek, an Optimate and a Schumacher SP3 all in one storage area.
Each quad has an SP3
The Toyhauler bank has the ctek on it.
The car has an optimate.
The little car is the 4th vehicle and kept around for out of town visitors that need a car and sits on a maintainer year round otherwise.
UD
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Davegvg
Well-known member
Ive had the best overall experience with Optimate as a brand.
Just a week ago - I had a client whose transfer switch blew and had a 410 AH bank of 2 big AGM's worth 1200 bones phantom drain and discharge down to 6 volts.
She only discovered it after a month and the repair and parts will take several more weeks so not an option to wait longer before a recovery attempt.
These are already 4 years old and cycled quite a bit - I wanted to give it the best shot at a recovery back to full charge.
What to use? the unit is offsite so I have to be able to plug it in and walk away, I'll be away at least 24 hours.
In this case I used an optimate 7 which is supposed to be good from 3-400AH so the target bank was slightly out of spec at 410 amps.
According to many 10 amps "isn't enough" to accomplish this yet the unit put it back to float voltage at 13.6 or fully charged according to the manufacturer.
Impressive save, and full recovery from a " dumb" throwdown.
Uncle Dave
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I have a 10+yr old Battery Tender 1.2A but recently drank the CTEK MS 5.0 koolaid. It's supposed to have gee wiz features like desulfation and reconditioning as well as higher amps for charging. I have a 5yr old DieHard Platinum battery that I tried it on, the battery is tired and the voltage settles around 11.9v after sitting idle for 2 days. I let CTEK do it's thing twice but no difference. So I personally didn't see any noticeable improvement in my unscientific test but since the CTEK is newer I've just been using that.