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zakthor zakthor is online now
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: beaux arts, wa
Posts: 1,405
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I have a schumacher 'smart' charger I bought at a box auto parts store. The directions are so sparse I had no clue what it did so I monitored it with a voltmeter.

It looks like an older version of this and with similar specs:

https://www.schumacherelectric.com/products/6v-12v-125a-proseries-battery-charger-engine-starter/

It is actually pretty terrific. When charging it maintains a voltage about 1-1.5volts above the batteries current float, so rides the voltage up nice and smooth. A full charge of a fully discharged truck battery takes about 24 hours. I know its a horrible thing for a battery but this charger does a terrific job of restoring batteries.

I've also had batteries so low that they wouldn't charge. I put charger in the 'boost' mode and it zaps battery with 14v and lots of amps. After about 15 minutes the battery 'woke up' and started charging normally. I don't know what it means chemically, battery was behaving like it was shorted at low amps, but at high amps it unshorted itself?

Charger also acts as a maintainer with very infrequent bursts of +0.3v.

However: user interface is 3 lights and a button. it gives you no clue and almost no control of what its doing. I now always use it with a multimeter so I can see that its behaving sanely, because otherwise you just don't know.

I imagine there are fully instrumented chargers out there and I'd love to have one. Something that shares data over wifi or something, gives me a voltage graph so I know it hasn't gone crazy.
Old 08-14-2024, 12:17 PM
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