Best 12v battery charger?

I've got tons of 12v batteries and nothing but a few battery cooking dumb chargers. I'm looking for a good automatic charger which will charge both SLA batteries and automotive type batteries. It needs to have a relatively low setting for charging small SLA batteries, and would be nice if it had 5+ amps for charging larger batteries. Anybody have any recommendations?

The Triton charger will do that, won't it?

Guess I should mention I'm looking for something under about $50. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I have an old charger that is 6 amps with a dial I can set it as low as 100ma. Try looking around for a motorcycle battery charger that goes down to 100 ma or so. Walmart may even have some smart chargers that do that I saw some fancy ones but didn't read much about them other than they supposedly ramp down the current when they detect something.

What do you guys think about this charger?
http://www.schumacherelectric.com/details.cfm?prodid=SC%2D600A&catid=2
Can I charge SLAs with that? They're *REALLY* cheap on ebay...

It doesn't appear that charger has a mode lower than 2amps for charging rate. I didn't find any chargers on that site that supported charging rates below 1amp. I wouldn't recommend it for an SLA charger as I believe they recommend a .1-.3C charge rate which on a 4A/hr battery would be 400-1200ma.

Looks similar to the chargers I saw at walmart. I would go shop around local first and see what is available including perhaps the home improvement and hardware stores. There are threads that discuss suggested charging rates for SLA and other lead acid batteries. You may be able to get a 20amp to 0.1amp smart charger for around $50. SLAs essentially charge the same as standard lead acid from what I have read, just since they have considerably less capacity sometimes the charge rates are equivocably lower and the trickle charge rates also.

Also look for gel cell chargers as SLA are often described as gel cells too.

I agree, walmart and kmart have some small chargers in the auto section that are automatic and even smaller in the motorcycle section next to the help desk and batteries.

I have a 6 and 12 volt 2-6 amp charger and a 10 amp 12 or 24 volt,but have automatic and manual settings. I got one from walmart the 24 volt model for wheelchairs and the 12 volt one from kmart.

Myself, I wouldnt mind having one of those big honking ones you wheel around that will jump start a dead car. Those little ones will not touch a dead battery in my experience. Well,,, the 24 volt model will if you flip it to 24 volts for a few minutes then bacj to 12.

Have you looked at desulfering types or just trickle chargers? Sounds like you need one of those solar panel chargers, they put out the lower range of voltages that you are looking for, I mean amperage. bgmicro.com has one I believe.

[ QUOTE ]
cobb said:
Myself, I wouldnt mind having one of those big honking ones you wheel around that will jump start a dead car. Those little ones will not touch a dead battery in my experience. Well,,, the 24 volt model will if you flip it to 24 volts for a few minutes then bacj to 12.

Have you looked at desulfering types or just trickle chargers? Sounds like you need one of those solar panel chargers, they put out the lower range of voltages that you are looking for, I mean amperage. bgmicro.com has one I believe.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortuneately, there's no Walmart around here. Most things at K-mart seem pretty overpriced to me, but I might go there and look around. I made my own 200 amp charger with an alternator and a Briggs and Stratton engine for those BIG jobs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif The one I linked above says it has a desulphator, but no trickle charging. (I thought desulphating was supposed to be slow - wouldn't that be a trickle charge?) I think I might just buy one of those since they're only about $15 on ebay and then get a smaller charger for small SLAs.

I have a 10 amp charge 30amp fast charge/50 amp boost charger that works pretty good at starting cars with dead batteries. Sometimes you have to let it sit for 5 mins on the 50 amp boost setting which charges at 30 amps before you can get the car to start though.

A throught.. you may try emailing batterystation.com, they sell a lot of SLA and I bet could recommend a decent smart charger for them of some sort.

Hi everyone, I'm new on this website and need advice on SLA battery chargers, hope I posted on the correct forum, thanks!

Check out ctek.

Not sure where you live however here in Europe we have Lidl offer a rather cheap but good quality charger (Ultimate Speed brand). I have two chargers over the years and they work flawlessly. 3.8/3.2A/0.8A for normal charging (14.4/14.7 V), 0.8A for smaller batteries and also does 6V and it is a 3 phase charger (bulk/absorption/float). Costs 20 euro, might be $25 or so. It mostly looks like a clone of ctek.

Nev said:

Check out ctek.

Click to expand...

That's what Porsche uses to private label their battery maintainers.