I'm shopping for a battery charger to maintain the 12v battery of my lawn tractor healthy during winter and possibly using it in my vehicles' batteries if needed. It seems the most common brands are Schumacher and Vector. The Schumacher ones a pretty simple and the Vectors bring all kinds of fancy features (alternator test, battery testing, etc). Has anybody has experience with one or the other? Any recommendations?
Battery chargers
- Thread starter GimmeTorq
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A Battery Charger is a Battery Charger you dont need one with bells & whistles,just a cheap 4amp trickle feed one with a HI-LO switch will do,Any brand...
I bought an mid to upper line Sears on sale for $35. Normal sticker was around $70. It has settings to charge car batteries, jump start cars, charge deep cycle marine batteries, and charge lawn tractor batteries. I think it also has a trickle charge to warm a battery. I used to have a boat so this is why I have this model.
harbor freight has a flat trickle charger for 10 dollars. its floating point seems to be 13.6
my dad has been alternating it between 3 batteries for almost a year now and they all test out good with a load tester.
my dad has been alternating it between 3 batteries for almost a year now and they all test out good with a load tester.
really? i always wonder if this would work?? will battery demand a stronger current and overload and kill the transformer?quote:
Originally posted by Gary Allan:
If you want to go REALLY cheap ..just poke around your junk electronic stuff and find a simple wall transformer ...find one with a 13.5v output ..the current output should be in the low ma range. Cut the wires ...wrap it around the respective terminals, plug it in, and forget about it. This goes out the window if you have to buy it from Radio Shack since you're within $4 of one setup for it.
Just throwing it out there for the truly frugal
any of the wallwarts LEGALLY sold in the US (and probably any civilized country) have internal fuses. I've used them for years for this very purpose, mine is 14vdc actually. Don't expect a quick charge, however. It may get you to the shop for a new battery with an overnight charge.
The current capacity is merely going to tell you how many amps it will provide before the voltage sags below the stated value. If the voltage drops below that of the battery, the current will stop anyway. If there is an internal short, it may just blow the wart's internal fuse. Either way, I believe they are extremely safe.
The current capacity is merely going to tell you how many amps it will provide before the voltage sags below the stated value. If the voltage drops below that of the battery, the current will stop anyway. If there is an internal short, it may just blow the wart's internal fuse. Either way, I believe they are extremely safe.
Most of those transformer power supplies are not regulated so what happens is that the more amperage the battery tries to draw out of them, the lower the output voltage drops. Since the output voltage is what determines how much amperage the battery will draw, you can see that there is some limiting going on there.
What I would be concerned about is that the no-load voltage of some transformers rated 12V can be as high as 15V, which means that when the battery has fully charged and isn't drawing much current, there will be increased water loss and in the case of a sealed lead acid battery, cause it to vent electrolyte, possibly ruining it, all due to the higher voltage.
For maintenance (ie: trickle/storage) I have had really good luck with the Battery Tenders. Newer versions are "wallwarts" and are reasonably priced at around $30. Their outputs are regulated to within .5% and amperage tops at around 900ma on my bench tests. Float voltage is right there at 13v +/- .2 volts. What I like about these smaller "chargers" is that they charge right at the 1A threshold. This lowers the likelyhood of boiling electrolyte or venting especially in smaller batteries like motorcycles and lawn equipment.
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It should be a self-biased regulated power supply. it only provides whatever the ma rating is at the spec'd VDC. I think you can put a short across it (although I've never tried).
Wal-Mart sells a battery charger/mainainer that has two LEDs (Green and Red) and a short AC power cord. The battery connector cable has a couple of ring terminals on the end.
It's designed for mounting inside a vehicle's engine compartment and permanently connecting to the battery. It puts out 1.5 amps. It costs about $25.
I've used it to charge sealed lead acid batteries without a problem--if it can charge those without messing them up, then it certainly wouldn't have a problem with non-sealled (spillable) lead acid batteries.
It looks almost identical to this one:
http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/ProductDisplay/c-10101/s-10101/p-168796/mediaCode-ZX/appId-384154
My preference is a low amp automatic charger. The slower you charge a battery the better, as long as the battery can be charged overnight all is well.
My current charger is a Vector (Wal*Mart, maybe $30 or so), 2, 4, and 6, amp settings, automatic 3 level charging electronics. With 6 amps I can charge my boat trolling motor battery overnight. With 2 amps I can very safely charge my lawn tractor battery in a few hours.
To keep fully charged batteries in top shape I use float charger (Maybe $10 to $15), batteries are kept strong, does not overcharge, does not "boil" the liquid out, can be left on 24/7.
My current charger is a Vector (Wal*Mart, maybe $30 or so), 2, 4, and 6, amp settings, automatic 3 level charging electronics. With 6 amps I can charge my boat trolling motor battery overnight. With 2 amps I can very safely charge my lawn tractor battery in a few hours.
To keep fully charged batteries in top shape I use float charger (Maybe $10 to $15), batteries are kept strong, does not overcharge, does not "boil" the liquid out, can be left on 24/7.
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If you want to go REALLY cheap ..just poke around your junk electronic stuff and find a simple wall transformer ...find one with a 13.5v output ..the current output should be in the low ma range. Cut the wires ...wrap it around the respective terminals, plug it in, and forget about it. This goes out the window if you have to buy it from Radio Shack since you're within $4 of one setup for it.
Just throwing it out there for the truly frugal
Just throwing it out there for the truly frugal
I have a battery minder, purchased from northerntool.com for $49. There website isn't up at this moment otherwise I'd post the direct link, but here's another site showing what I use, it's the 12-volt 1amp one
http://www.batteryweb.com/batteryminder.cfm
also suggest you read their battery faq's, and also do a search at howstuffworks.com for battery info before you buy, that way you know you're getting what you need.
with a wet-cell battery (ie lead-acid) at 6v or 12v, you can't use a typical battery charger because they pump too much current into the battery to "maintain" it. Typical chargers from $10-$50 have a low setting of 2 amps, which is too much and will boil off electrolyte when leaving it connected to maintain a battery. It'll do that even when trying to bring a battery back to 100%. To maintain a battery, you want a 1-amp and less.
Most battery maintainers, as opposed to chargers, run $50 or more from what I've seen over the past year. The cheapest being the batteryminder. The "maintainers" are what you leave connected to the battery all the time, like for over winter as you mentioned. They can also be used to charge a battery. The tradeoff however is they take much longer to charge a discharged battery because they only output at most 1 amp usually. You would never use these on a battery to start a vehicle. Their good side is they "float" to maintain a battery and are supposed to be left connected to a battery all the time and will never hurt the battery. Many models also have desulfation mode- and will help restore weak batteries.
One popular battery maintainer is the BatteryTender, do a search for that. You will pay more because of the name, but they sell units that are maintainers and chargers.
http://www.batteryweb.com/batteryminder.cfm
also suggest you read their battery faq's, and also do a search at howstuffworks.com for battery info before you buy, that way you know you're getting what you need.
with a wet-cell battery (ie lead-acid) at 6v or 12v, you can't use a typical battery charger because they pump too much current into the battery to "maintain" it. Typical chargers from $10-$50 have a low setting of 2 amps, which is too much and will boil off electrolyte when leaving it connected to maintain a battery. It'll do that even when trying to bring a battery back to 100%. To maintain a battery, you want a 1-amp and less.
Most battery maintainers, as opposed to chargers, run $50 or more from what I've seen over the past year. The cheapest being the batteryminder. The "maintainers" are what you leave connected to the battery all the time, like for over winter as you mentioned. They can also be used to charge a battery. The tradeoff however is they take much longer to charge a discharged battery because they only output at most 1 amp usually. You would never use these on a battery to start a vehicle. Their good side is they "float" to maintain a battery and are supposed to be left connected to a battery all the time and will never hurt the battery. Many models also have desulfation mode- and will help restore weak batteries.
One popular battery maintainer is the BatteryTender, do a search for that. You will pay more because of the name, but they sell units that are maintainers and chargers.
It's not so much the amperage that matters, but the voltage. The ideal voltage to maintain or charge a 12V lead-acid battery is around 13.8V (no it's not a coincidence that the nominal voltage of a 12V car system is specified as 13.8V) -- feed 13.8V into any 12V lead acid battery, sealed or not, and it'll take as much current as it needs to charge without overcharging.
The only reason to ever use a higher voltage is for a faster charge, but the voltage MUST be reduced to around 13.8V when the battery has finished charging, otherwise it will damage the battery.
If the battery voltage is at 13.3 volts and you hook up a 1 million amp source to the battery and regulate the souce to 13.3 volts, there will be no current flow.
The 100 plus amp alternator on your car is only voltage regulated up until it hits the limit of the charging system.
I just got the wallyworld special, just like brianl703 described. It's a selectable 2/4 amp type charger and floats when battery is full. Will charge battery as long as it's charge state is about 4 volts. Works great. Only thing is keep it away from your radio, won't pick up anything when it's on. Only paid 16 bucks for it.
you lost me.
I understand there would be no current flow if the battery was at 13.3v and you connect another 13.3v source to it. But a car battery's 100% state of charge voltage is at most 12.9. What do you mean by "battery voltage is at 13.3"? We are talking typical lead-acid (wet-cell) car batteries right?
what do you mean about the alternator?
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