Re: (ET) name names: battery chargers

["David Roden" <etpost drmm net>]

You generally don't get really smart chargers for under $100.  Besides the 
greater cost of good components and design, high quality chargers don't 
sell 
in large volumes, so they don't benefit from economy of scale, so they're 
expensive, so they don't sell well ... etc.

Dunno specifically about the Schumacher you were looking at.  I checked a 
simpler Schumacher out in a store a few months ago and I thought I was 
looking at a parody of the Schumachers I used to use many years ago.  It 
was 
cheap, cheap, cheap.  Looked like thin stamped sheet metal, slightly 
ragged 
looking silk screened legends on the panel, and of course on the back it 
said "Made in China."  Even the box it came in looked flimsy.  Bleah.

So I'm not sure, but my guess is that your $50 Schumacher has taken that 
route to low cost.  Might be OK, or it might end up being a disposable 
unit. 
 Has anyone here been using one of these more than a couple of years?

For cheap chargers I recommend the ones made by Cliplight of Canada.  
They're sold (or used to be) in several stores, particularly NAPA.  The 
ones 
I have are in vertical-format heavy plastic cases with vent slots at the 
top 
and bottom, and have a big thick molded handle at the top.  They're plain 
linear chargers and they aren't very smart (basic cycle-dropping charge 
control at 14.3 and 14.8 volts), but I've been using 3 to charge the 12v 
gel 
batteries in my ET for about 8 years.  

NAPA doesn't seem to sell quite the same one I have any more, but the 85-
7512 and 85-437 models seem to have similar capabilities.  There's one on 
Ebay too which looks markedly nicer than mine - look at # 120046542370.

To try to answer Daniel's question, his charger sounds like it's similar 
to 
mine, at least in principle.  The 2 amp setting is just a lower-voltage 
tap 
on the transformer.  I find that it doesn't do much, and never use it.  
Assuming Daniel's is not the very bottom of the line manual charger, it 
will 
cycle between 0 amps and about 6 amps as the charge winds down.  Should be 
OK for nearly any lead battery of U-1 size or larger.


David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA

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