I'm getting tired of my Schumacher "smart" charger being too picky to actually charge some automotive batteries. Does anyone have a recommendation for a dumb charger? It seems like they are all marketed as smart chargers anymore.
Recommend a good "dumb" 12v battery charger
- Thread starter DLW875
- Start date
not that I did not appreciate tjhe old dumb chargers but in todays tech Why go dumb when an intelligent charger like a NOCO can save and protect your batteries ?
I have a Husky charger that is to smart to be useful the NOCO can actually get batteries useful again that the too smart charger refuse to
I have a Husky charger that is to smart to be useful the NOCO can actually get batteries useful again that the too smart charger refuse to
pepi
Well-known member
Car battery "Battery Tender" works great last long time. Have 2 one 30 years old, the other 15, use year round.
Smart or not so, both are trickle chargers, one has dancing LEDs, the other just does the job over and over, metal case, no hype required.
Smart or not so, both are trickle chargers, one has dancing LEDs, the other just does the job over and over, metal case, no hype required.
skulldrinker
Well-known member
This is my choice after throwing out my last smart charger. The volt meter and ammeter keep me informed and leave the "smart" up to me. The large transformer, rectifier, and cooling fan make it a dependable, long lasting machine. And it is a proven performer in commercial automotive shops.
Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk
Attachments
jgromada
Well-known member
After i bought my NOCO charger I never thought i would need that brick of a charger (dumb), I found out if my battery was severely discharged then it would not take a charge with the NOCO. I wonder if there are chargers that would address this situation?
So anyway that battery i mentioned was saved after it was trickle charged for half hour or so with the dumb charger. The NOCO did have a "repair" function that goes through and de-sulfates the battery after i could NOCO to work . This was almost 2 years ago and that same battery is going strong so i fully endorse these smart batteries but it doesn't eliminate the need for a dumb charger.
So anyway that battery i mentioned was saved after it was trickle charged for half hour or so with the dumb charger. The NOCO did have a "repair" function that goes through and de-sulfates the battery after i could NOCO to work . This was almost 2 years ago and that same battery is going strong so i fully endorse these smart batteries but it doesn't eliminate the need for a dumb charger.
Cryptic1911
Well-known member
because they **** and refuse to charge most batteries. The expensive schumacher I bought hasn't charged a single battery that has gotten low enough to need a charge. It ******* every time "bad batt", yet I can go charge it on a dumb charger and then the battery is fine. I'm pissed that I wasted $200 on this charger and would like to throw it in the goddamn river. If it's just sat a while and is a little low, it will charge, but if you actually need to charge a battery they are garbage
maybe define why would you want a "dumb" charger... they are really No Good for most average battery charging tasks.. especially in the hand of people that doesn't know how to use it properly, you will damage the battery more than charging it.
FigureItOut
Well-known member
It's not the smart to blame, it's the Schumacher.
Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk
GirlnAgarage
Well-known member
Battery Tender
theoldwizard1
Well-known member
Yes ! They start getting expensive when you get above about 500W.
Almost all "fixed" 12V power supplies can be adjusted up to 14V-15V DC. Current might be down a bit. No meters. Use a cheap mechanical lamp timer on the input.
RTM
Well-known member
A vintage garage sale charger would be great. I have an older Sears, bought right when the smart ones started coming out, didn’t want to spend the money. It must be approximately 1986 vintage I’d guess.
Davegvg
Well-known member
I have a couple of shcumachers and they vary greatly in terms of which ones are any good. I pitched 3 of them for being junk and both not initiating a change and an more serious sin - over volting
Schumacher isnt a great brand of smart charger to begin with.
The ones I trust and have multiple are
CTEK, and even better Optimate mainly the optimate 6 which will charge from .5 volts, and cover a battery size from 4 amps to 240 volt motorhome bank.
I hear very good things about prologixx/ Clore brand as well.
Mick56
Well-known member
I see lots of old chargers at garage sales, $5-$20. Thats where both of mine came from.
redmondjp
Well-known member
I'm sorry, but this is simply not true. Especially when you have older batteries that have high internal impedance which the "smart" chargers won't properly charge (either they will fail to start charging at all, or claim that the battery is fully charged because they get tricked by the initial high voltage that a high-impedance battery will present to the charger, before the lead sulfate layer gets breached on the plates and the voltage drops).
I have several vintage 6 amp chargers that I still use all the time - yes, if you leave it connected for way too long you can boil the battery. I have a volt meter and know how to use it.
Does it mean that I have to more closely monitor the charging? You bet. But that doesn't mean that old-school chargers don't work and don't have a place in your shop.
joe_padavano
Well-known member
I'm not "people that doesn't know how to use it properly", and frankly I don't want someone else telling me how to charge my battery. I've got a smart charger and an ancient "dumb" charger, and the latter gets used a LOT more. I have not damaged a battery in the last 50 years, and that includes fully discharged AGM in addition to lead-acid batteries. I neither want nor need a smart charger, autonomous car, or interweb-connected appliances. If people are too stupid to read and follow directions, they they can buy whatever they want.
theoldwizard1
Well-known member
The simple way to "trick" a smart charger is connect your dead battery up to a good one for about 10 minutes. Any wire over 18 AWG would be good. That should give the old battery enough "charge" to get your smart charger to realize there is something there.
That sounds like the way to go then. More generally useful. Adjustable. Likely more accurate than the typical 'dumb' charger. Reasonable amount of time to fully charge a 1200 Wh battery.
What do you think is a good rate for charging a lead acid car battery?
Do share with me/ maybe us your great knowledge of lead acid battery charging techniques..Maybe it is me, I have not seems to have the many luck as you in claiming dumb chargers are better and not overcharging the batteries.
I think you needed more than a volt meter to use with a dumb chargers, aside from baby siting it and make sure it doesn't get over charge. This (over voltage) not only boils the water in the electrolyte, the worse is it warp thinner plate of the consumer grade batteries easily. If I remember the old days, you would also monitor the electrolyte to check if it is fully charged or discharged. Way too much tendering. Not sure if that was the same practice people with "Dumb" chargers does now a days. Other than you manually monitor and interpret the open voltage compare to a chart.
I have done this on numerous occasions and am just getting tired of playing the game. I will look into the NOCO chargers since they claim to be able to work on a wide range of states of charge. Thanks everyone.
I recently got the 4AMP battery tender charger off Costco for $40.. works great so far. Slow over night type, but did revive a weak original Honda CRV battery from 2014.. after I have added some water...still starts the car. But it is a smart charger thought..
toplessHO
Well-known member
this or leave the good one connected until the charge is done
Ive had AGMs that wouldnt take a charge,come to life this way
I have needed a dumb charger to recharge my boat batteries I left it in storage over winter. I brought it home and the onboard charger wouldn't do anything. They need to see 11 volts or they will not charge. I used my old charger and it got my Deep cycle batteries charged may not be 100% but it still works the trolling motor.
This video shows how to recover AGM Deep Discharge batteries.
This video shows how to recover AGM Deep Discharge batteries.
I bought a Clore 10A charger last August. It's a "smart charger" but has a Force Mode that is supposed to charge dead batteries. I haven't used that feature yet.
https://www.amazon.com/Clore-Automotive-Pro-Logix-PL2310-Maintainer/dp/B007P7ABE6/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-nc-drs1_0?cv_ct_cx=clore+charger&dchild=1&keywords=clore+charger&pd_rd_i=B007P7ABE6&pd_rd_r=960b72de-17e8-4209-a57b-182abbc30dd8&pd_rd_w=JTIOy&pd_rd_wg=kRqlV&pf_rd_p=a64002b9-9c26-4361-b8a1-b0f5a4835670&pf_rd_r=FXYVESAXJ52HRPZ1H7MY&psc=1&qid=1610069934&s=automotive&sr=1-1-38d0a374-3318-4625-ad92-b6761a63ecf6
https://www.amazon.com/Clore-Automotive-Pro-Logix-PL2310-Maintainer/dp/B007P7ABE6/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-nc-drs1_0?cv_ct_cx=clore+charger&dchild=1&keywords=clore+charger&pd_rd_i=B007P7ABE6&pd_rd_r=960b72de-17e8-4209-a57b-182abbc30dd8&pd_rd_w=JTIOy&pd_rd_wg=kRqlV&pf_rd_p=a64002b9-9c26-4361-b8a1-b0f5a4835670&pf_rd_r=FXYVESAXJ52HRPZ1H7MY&psc=1&qid=1610069934&s=automotive&sr=1-1-38d0a374-3318-4625-ad92-b6761a63ecf6
n8n
Well-known member
It's the opposite of a dumb charger, but I have a CTEK Multi US 7002 and it has a "supply" mode which I've successfully used to "jump start" dead 12V batteries many times. Leave it on "supply" for an hour or so to get the battery voltage up to where the detection circuit doesn't think that the leads are disconnected and then you can charge as usual.
It also has a "recondition" mode; I don't know if it means anything but the original battery in my BMW lasted about 5 years (I bought the car used at 3 years old). It's now 12 years old and the replacement battery is still going strong; I do run a recondition cycle every fall or early winter.
It also has a "recondition" mode; I don't know if it means anything but the original battery in my BMW lasted about 5 years (I bought the car used at 3 years old). It's now 12 years old and the replacement battery is still going strong; I do run a recondition cycle every fall or early winter.
Sorry but that guy sounds like a snake oil sales man... especially the techniques uses to grab your attention
I think this guy is better and more informative... either case if op really wants to restore discharged batteries or take a shot at the dead batteries, yea a dumb charger or another battery in parallel work... but if he is using a dumb charger for normal every day recharging a good battery, then it might do more harm than good. YMMV
Last edited:
MarineScott
Well-known member
I agree. Get one that has the timer. I'll bet there are many batteries, recycled that are still good, and maybe that's what they want. Get a good battery tester and recheck too.
Jazz1
Well-known member
You need 40 year old charger likely. Old battery chargers could be used as a power supply when working on a vehicle or tinkering with anything when no battery handy,, the new "smart chargers" won't allow.
Both Clore 10A/20A & Noco 10A "smart chargers" have a Power Supply mode. Those are just a few off the top of my head, there are probably others. 
GirlnAgarage
Well-known member
I hear you on it being smart. The good thing is thst if you get the SAE connector installed, its easy to maintain the battery throughout the life of it instead of trying to use an AED on a dying heart.
elidas
Well-known member
I have a "fleet" of older chargers that I bought at yard sales. We had a recall the required the key stay on for several hours and battery voltage stayed up. I also kept a charger on cars that I was diaging electrical issues. I would also use them to bring batteries up to a voltage the fancy chargers could use. These were all in the $5 range. I wasn't a fan of the Schumacher ones. My favorite was the Sears 6 amp.
theoldwizard1
Well-known member
And this is why you want to use a smart charger !
Lead acid batteries are NOT usually measure in Wh. The are most commonly measure in Ah (at a 20 hour rate).
I'm not going to explain everything about battery charging, but most depleted batteries can take a much higher rate of charge for a period of time, the "bulk charge", before they are backed down to something called the "topping charge" and then finally the "float charge".
If you are going to charge with a power supply, make sure you have a good voltmeter to check things AND you are using a good mechanical minute timer to turn it off. People who know what they are doing actually will hit them with 100A !
It sounds to me like a 'smart charger' merely has some sort of table driven rate of charging based on current voltage of battery for some sort of 'average' battery of a given family. Perhaps a switch for general family of battery type.
I was reading a bit on sulfation, but it occurred to me that the charger manufacturer would basically just stuff in conservative values for rate of charge.
Perhaps there's more control system that that? Push some power in, look at the result, change your algorithm?
Mr_fixit
Well-known member
I used this for about 5 yrs now to charge all my batteries.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32992652972.html
You can set the voltage and current limit.
Lucid Moments
Well-known member
I am with others that have had good experience with Battery Tender charger/maintainers. They have never failed for me in bringing some truly abused batteries back to life. Plus you just don't have to worry about leaving them on too long. The ones I have are 1.25 amp chargers so they sometimes take a little while, but they make higher amp versions now too.
Bumping. Had concluded many unhappy with Schumacher and Cen-Tech (HFreight), but good to know some "smart" chargers are smart enough to "supply", or "force" 12V. "Won't charge", or volt-sense, is the most common complaint, along with boiling. Then, you find puny 2-15 amp max chargers (like the Clore & CTEK), that won't help start a car.
Need
-50A, or better, maximum setting
-2A trickle (manual, or "force", "supply") and auto-mode
-Maybe a 10A mode, but really, as common as these mid-modes are I need lots of amps, now, or can trickle all day.
^This was my 30 year old Diehard charger
I don't want to lug some 25-45 pound battery around, to fake a modern "smart" charger, or jump a vehicle. The processor board on the Diehard seems to have died (hunting lower voltages, diodes fine). I can get 25A button diodes, but am SOL on that PCB.
I'm a Tesla nut. I get it; "tapering" from 118KW at superchargers, BMS for 3.7V cells, etc. This post is about the clunker ICE, that doesn't get used (cause gas is back $$ up, and watts are clean/cheap).
This was also a "They don't make things like they used to" rant.
Need
-50A, or better, maximum setting
-2A trickle (manual, or "force", "supply") and auto-mode
-Maybe a 10A mode, but really, as common as these mid-modes are I need lots of amps, now, or can trickle all day.
^This was my 30 year old Diehard charger
I don't want to lug some 25-45 pound battery around, to fake a modern "smart" charger, or jump a vehicle. The processor board on the Diehard seems to have died (hunting lower voltages, diodes fine). I can get 25A button diodes, but am SOL on that PCB.
I'm a Tesla nut. I get it; "tapering" from 118KW at superchargers, BMS for 3.7V cells, etc. This post is about the clunker ICE, that doesn't get used (cause gas is back $$ up, and watts are clean/cheap).
This was also a "They don't make things like they used to" rant.