Recommend me a battery charger

[greasegorilla]

I need a battery charger system, one that can do everything. Primary use will be charging/maintaining smaller 12v gel cell batteries on high performance sport vehicles (my harley, race quad, and dirtbikes). All of these are extremely hard on batteries. Some of it being my own stupidity (leaving ignition or headlights on) other just being the nature of use in my toys, but a normal battery charger just doesn't do the job for these.

I need something I can hook up and walk away from and not worry about burning my garage down, a "smart" charger that can do its own thing. I need it to bring drained batteries back to life, or use as a battery maintainer for the winter (if thats possible). I'd also like it to be able to do the standard stuff of recharging a car battery, or jump start a dead vehicle quickly. Im not going to set a budget, but I want a quality piece of equipment that will do the job right and last me for years, at a reasonable price for the features.

 

[Danglerb]

Smart chargers won't charge a totally dead battery. Dumb chargers aren't a very good idea to leave long term.

I use a 40+ year old dumb charger from Western Auto, a few HF $6 on sale maintainers, and Shumacher SC6000 to quick charge and start after the old dumb charger puts a little charge back in.

The cheap HF can overheat if used on a dead battery, but might still put some charge back on it.

 

[Ray916MN]

I've been using Deltran Battery Tenders for over a decade. I have 3 single units and a 4 bay unit. I use them to keep my motorcycles, lawn tractor, cars and trucks ready to go. They seem to work well as I never have a problem starting something even after it has sat for 6 months. My only complaint is that they do too good of a job maintaining marginal batteries.

A battery at the end of its life will start a vehicle fine right off the chargers, but if you run short errands starting a vehicle multiple times without running it enough to keep it charged it will begin to start marginally or sometimes fail to start. The problem is a failing battery doesn't show up in your garage, it shows up after you've left your garage when you use these chargers. They will bring a battery back from being run down from leaving headlights on, but they won't bring a battery back from being dead because it sat for several years.

They will not jump start a vehicle but I think chargers which do this are a PITA. The portable jump starters work much better than any plug in charger in my experience. It is much easier to grab a portable jump starter and jump start a vehicle than to drag something around with a wall plug.

 

[G1GRANDEUR]

please search

 

[JASTECH]

NOCO Genius battery charger/desulfator/maintainers

 

[HOTFR8]

Lots of topics on the GJ have been posted about tenders and chargers before.

 

[Steevo]

http://www.batteryweb.com/12117-batteryminder.htm

 

[theoldwizard1]

Schumacher SE-5212A

Whatever you get, make certain it is microprocessor controlled and can set though all of the different battery charging stages.