Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

[qtiznip]

Hi All,

What is the best value battery charger that you all can recommend? I will be using it to charge a single 24-31 group battery, which i have not yet purchased. Money is an issue and I'm looking to keep the cost down, but not wanting to get a charger that is going to destroy my batteries and cost me more in the long run.

Thanks

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

Get a simple "smart" charger. It will usually charge at less than 3-5 amps (trickle charge) and shut off when the battery is at optimum charge. If left on, it simply goes into endless standby mode, until the battery needs a boost. They will also have a "start" feature, which gives an extra boost for starting. Mine also has a digital display that when the engine is running, shows the alternator output as well. It has separate settings for small motorcycle batteries, 12v standard batteries, and AGM batteries. You can usually find them at any big store. Mine is a Schumacher and I'm extremely happy with it. It actually restored a dead battery for the Harley. I think I got mine for around $50-$75.

 

[Boatist]

Re: Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

Get a smart or automatic battery charger. I would not buy one less than 10 amps. 10 amps will still take near 24 hours to fully recharge a group 31 battery.

On board charger are also very good but are almost twice the price. The good thing about them is you hook it up and then all you have to do is plug it in and it will do the job.
The eaiser you make it to charge your battery the more often you will do it and the longer your battery will last.

Do not buy a trickle charger. Most do not have any voltage regulation and will over charge if left plugged in to long.

Battery maintainer and Float chargers will also fully charge without over charging but they are offten very low amps. I believe the longer a battery is left discharged the shorter the battery life will be.

Walmart has some pretty good battery chargers.

Most important thing is to keep you batteries charged. Since all batteries self discharge and they discharge faster in hot weather charge once a month in summer and every 2 months in winter.
Also at the end of each trip fully charge as soon as possible for long life.

 

[dccordell]

Re: Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

+1 on wally chargers.. I've always had good luck from battery chargers that I've bought from Walmart (I know!! but..). I haven't used any of the newer styles that they have available now (because the 3-4yr old chargers I have still work fine), but they seem to have all of the features that you could want. I know on almost any given day, I can find one of the newer Schumacher brands on sale for under $50 at my store. Make sure it's automatic and will adjust the charge rate based on the charge level of the battery as it is charging. Some chargers have the "boost" feature that will give around 55amps for very short intervals for a little boost of power for starting if the battery is discharged which has only been helpful once on my lawn mower. I don't really see that feature as necessary...

iBoats doesn't have this particular brand (or anything comprable for us on tight budgets), so here's a link to it at walmart, and you can read the reviews there, right at $50: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-SpeedCharge-12-Amp-Battery-Charger/13005744 ... maybe somebody here has actually used this brand and can let us know how it works for them! If I was looking for a new charger, this would be the winner for me.

The only thing about these types of chargers is you have to hook them up to the battery every time you want to charge, which for most is just second nature after a while... the good thing is you don't have to worry about keeping track of how long the battery has charged because it's automatic: no over-charging.

Oh, one more thing... one thing that I have noticed about the auto chargers is if you let your battery get just absolutely completely DEAD then you might have trouble charging it with some auto chargers because they will sense that the battery is bad and it won't start charging. I have seen it happen before to others and myself, as well as someone on the reviews on the walmart site said it happened to them. I've read that the solution to this problem is to hook another good fully charged battery in parallel with the dead battery (+ to +, - to -), and then charge them both at the same time to revive the dead battery. Then all is good... I've read that solution on iboats at least once too.. just something to keep in mind! You shouldn't let your batteries die to that level ever anyways!

Hope that helps..

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

Agree on the Wal-Mart chargers. I have this little guy and it works great http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-SpeedCharge-6-Amp-Battery-Charger/13005743?findingMethod=rr

 

[JoLin]

Re: Best Battery Charger for the Dollar

I've been using a Husky smart charger from HD for 4 years. It has 2/10/20 amp charge output, a setting for any battery type (wet, gel, AGM) and a desulfate mode that I use occasionally (it's automatic and takes 24 hours). Auto shutoff at full charge, of course.

LED display shows any fault codes and shows 'FUL' when it's done.

$60.