Re: (ET) name names: battery chargers

[Daniel Eyk <danieleyk yahoo com>]

I have a question about battery chargers you might be
able to answer. I have a regular 12 volt charger for
our cars that will charge at 2 amps regular or at 10
amps fast charge. I have a battery I am trying to keep
alive until I can get the car running again and
periodically have to charge the battery to maintain
it. The last time I tried to charge it, I set it for
the 2 amp setting as normal and let it sit overnight
to charge the battery and when I tried to start the
car, it just clicked  as a low battery would do. I
reset it for the 10 amp charge and again left it
overnight and the next day, the battery was up again
as normal and I could start the car. The battery
charge isn't that old, maybe 2-3 years and I was
wondering if the 2 amp side was giving trouble and how
could I check it to see if it is giving trouble? I do
have a regular VOM. Could I hook it up to the battery
and check the output with the VOM? I am not all that
used to troubleshooting electrical and want to learn
without blowing up my VOM. The other question is
whether or not the 10 amp charge rate is too much to
leave on overnight? Will it hurt the standard car
battery by charging to fast for that long?
                                  Thanks, Dan Eyk

--- tbamc <tbamc gbta net> wrote:

> Now that you've got me straightened out on small
> chargers for my AA and 
> AAA batteries, I want to get something for my larger
> batteries.   :-)
> 
> I'd LIKE to be able to charge car, E-T, and gel
> batteries, 6 and 12v, 
> with a charger that will be smart enough to do each
> of them 
> appropriately.  Don't want it to take forever to
> charge, but speed isn't 
> a priority.
> 
> After studying the archives and doing some research
> I've found some 
> fairly expensive chargers that would fit the bill,
> but very few that are 
> less than the $100 limit I'd LIKE to have.
> 
> One that seems like a good fit--though 6A is max
> current--is this:
> http://store.schumachermart.com/sc-600a.html.
> It says it will do AGM's but doesn't mention gel's. 
> (It's larger 
> version the SC 1000A--which won't do 6v--has a
> selector button labeled 
> AGM/gell, so I'm guessing choosing that mode works
> for either one, and 
> would be the same on the 600A?)
> Schumacher tells me it uses 3 stage
> charging--current, V, then float.  
> And, it's less than $50.
> 
> IIRC, some had concerns about inadequate max
> current.  I do have a 
> couple old chargers with 10A capability, if that
> helps.
> 
> Appreciate any thoughts you have about this one, or
> others I might have 
> missed.
> 
> Thanks.
> Thon
> 
> On a related note:  WHY are so many chargers so
> expensive??  Are the 
> parts themselves that expensive?  I would have
> thought with modern 
> electronics  and technology this would be fairly
> cheap to do??
> 
> 
> 
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