I have used the Battery MINDer on my cars for over 25 years. Recently I replaced the battery in my 2002 Corvette after 13 YEARS. The OEM battery in the Vette lasted for over 8 YEARS. For some reason, nobody on RU-vid seems to mention these devices. The big key with the Minder is that it uses a high FREQUENCY (not VOLTAGE) pulse to break up sulfite crystals. Therefore, no overvoltage. I connect the device to the battery if I will not be driving the car for 4 days.
I always thought the old style chargers lowered charging amps as the battery charged, indicated by the chargers gauge. Plus, I notice that any bubbling becomes less and less to eventually none as the battery gets a decent charge (in my estimation). In any case I never left one connected till the gauge got much below 2, for safety's sake.
A heavy charge current from an unregulated charger must be closely monitored to prevent boiling, venting of dangerous gases and creation of bubbles on the battery plates. But the old-style, unregulated charger is the only way to begin recovery of a dead battery if a smart charger cannot.
I am pretty satisfied with my NAPA 12V 4A/6V 2A trickle charger with a digitat display. I have a 2018 Dodge Ram 2500 6.7L diesel that I seldom drive. Since moving to So. Utah 4 years ago I've only put approx. 200mi. on the truck. With gas prices the way they are I prefer our Prius C which avg. 50mpg. The NAPA charger seems to be working fine for me, maintaining the voltage on both batteries wired in parallel on the truck. Thanks for the very informative video...enjoy your day!
I have one of those old Schmacher too. It's good for if the battery is really bad less than 4V cause the smart my not even recognize connection. Then I switch to the Battery Tender.
Obsolete...not at all...I don't how many times I used a "smart charger" to charge a low battery(not dead) and many hours later be told by the charger that the battery is bad, retried to with the same result, bad battery, tried with a dumb charger and battery took a full charge, been using that battery for 3 years now at temps below -25c no problems. Keep your dumb charger they are useful but be careful!
the average battery maintainer isnt meant to bring a battery back from the dead, very few of them are unless you want to spend a bunch on a high amp model that can do it. the old high amp "dumb" chargers can cram some voltage back into it to get it back up to where a smart charger can do what it does best, top off and maintain. "smart chargers" are meant to keep the battery healthy and prevent dead batteries from happening to start with by maintaining the charge and keeping the crystals from forming
Don,t throw out your old manual charger. If you have a 12 volt battery that is deeply discharged say below 8 volts most smart chargers will not charge it. You will need the manual charger to bring the volts up to above 8 volts then you can switch it back over to a smart charger and it will then charge it just fine
New smart chargers have a "Push" mode where they will still try to charge deeply discharged batteries. Mine will let you "push" a battery even if it's down to 0.5v.
Great video! Just want to mention. Oxygen is not explosive in its self. Oxygen only make something that’s burning, burn faster. It’s dangerous if around anything that could catch fire, but the oxygen itself is not explosive.
10:05 ' this is the one that stays hooked up to my batteries at all times' ... yo, even while your driving down the road? Just givin' you a hard time lol, couldn't resist.
Does the Deltran Batt Tender have the desultation feature? How do I know when a battery needs to be desultafied? Is there a 5amp Deltran available now? Thx so much for this video. It was very informative. Hoping to hear from you soon!
You mentioned you keep a volt meter connected to your batteries. Do you have a link to that volt meter? Is this different from a multimeter? It would be great to have an led read out that's constantly on while I'm charging without having to turn on my multimeter and checking the voltage.
FYI old chargers are good when you have specials projects if you know what you are doing. I got ride of mine but had a project which I needed to use an old charger, baking soda laundry soap and a hunk of metal which I needed to chemically remove the rust.
Great video thanks. I have a totally flat small 12V battery in my portable generator. I also have an older Battery Tender Jr. Did I hear you right that if the small battery is completely dead, the Battery Tender will not start charging? I attached it today and I have a red light on the tender. I thought that it might take a long time but now I’m wondering if it’s doing nothing based on what you said.
I don't understand how can you overcharge a battery when you're applying the rated voltage. Once it gets to that voltage it will stop, unless you're giving more voltage than what's it rated for it shouldn't overcharge.
Have you ever seen people using a stick welder to boil flooded batteries? They basically open the caps, fill them up, and boil them hard to get rid of the crystals and plating you're talking about. I've seen two videos where they did it to some degree of success.
Excellently explained yound man. Now my uncle was an old skool mechanic and always disconected the battery clamp leads, and charge, is this necessary anymote with these computer contorled so called smart chargers?
A big crude charger has lots of value for recharging a big depleted battery from zero to 80%, then a smaller smarter charger will top off the battery charging and maintain a safe storage voltage for lead acid batteries. The inconvenience of having to manually adjust charge rates is a saving in the cost of a smart enough charger to do both fast and controlled charging in a single box.
..If I understand it correctly ...batteries RT12120EV with 14ah should never be charged with 8ah charger ... so need to look for 1.4ah charger or lower ... good ( or may I use higher amp like 2-3 ?)
My battery maintainers will not charge a battery that is way down on charge.The instructions say to charge battery first,then hook up maintainers for long term storage.I run them on all my off season heavy equipment all winter.
My Kisea inverter/charger, with transfer switch, contains a float charge under the lithium battery setting, which I don't understand, because lithium batteries do not need a float charge. Is this float charge therefore detrimental? My inverter is hooked up to my pellet stove, to cover for power outages when they occur. So it is hooked up all the time.
Why is their no cigarette lighter adapters for charging on these models? I have a black&decker trickle charger that hooks up this way…..no need to get near battery.
Can I use a trickle charger on a 6 Volt 4-wheeler battery over the winter? Also, I set my deep cycle trolling motor go too long and it will no longer take a charge. Is there anything I can do to revive it? Thank you for your presentation; it was very helpful.
Float charge will, on a good charger let the battery get down to 12.6 to 12.4 and then pulse back on for a time. Batteries that are left charging at 13.2 to 13.6 get "lazy" after a while at that constant charge.
If you’re swapping out a battery but you need to maintain power to your car’s computer while removing the old battery, which system is best to provide power?
Very good video!! should all batteries be recharged the same? Or little low battery vs a battery thats been sitting for 2 years? any difference in charging the two
How can I tell if my OEM battery is AGM or just a regular flooded? It's a 2020 scatpack challenger. Nothing on the top of the battery says wet or AGM. No labels anywhere else. I removed the battery and gave it a good shake and lots of sloshing. So I assume it is not a AGM, just a regular flooded.. But someone told me AGM batteries still make a sloshing sound. Is that true?
Can someone please help us? We recently bought a Class C RV and have two 12 volt batteries wired in series we were told but I think they might be in parallel. They are sealed AGM batteries. We want to trickle charge so they won’t die. We have the SLC10005 Duracell Ultra Amp Charger but the instructions are vague. We don’t want to overcharge the batteries. When the 100% button flashes green we assume the batteries are fully charged and hopefully not charging anymore. Sometimes the button with the yellow exclamation point will flash and we have no idea what this means. And do you know what the stand by button is? Also, should we keep it plugged in all the time? Thanks so much!!!
I picked up a cheap battery maintainer at HarborFreight, I think it’s ‘cen-Tex’...for my generator battery. Is this safe to attach and leave, in my garage?
First off. Great video. Thank you. Secondly, I am looking for a way to use my truck as a Halloween prop but I don't want to keep the engine on, just the lights on my roof rack and parking lights. The battery is going to die quickly since I have 13 aux lights I want to use. What would work best to not hurt the battery but keep the lights on, engine off for 5 hours?
forget the battery, just use the battery charger. The charger should put out about 13.5 volts continuous, so if anything your lights will glow a little brighter :)
Awesome thanks so much! Have a question for you I just got a Napa battery charger/maintainer model HFMC15A. It’s a 1.5A charger so pretty gentle. Using it to charge a 12V 22AH battery. It says maintainer on the box does doesn’t mention anything in the manual and seems to be holding a charge around 13.5V and doesn’t drop off. Is there anyway for me to know for sure if it will maintain closer to 12V or is that 13.5V within the realm of reasonable over charge? Think I’ll be okay or should I get a different charger?? Thanks!
I have a schumacher 8amp battery charger. It has a charged/ maintain option ,what does that mean on the battery charger. I will be gone for 4 months would it be safe to leave it hook up to my car battery that long of time?
They actually threatened legal action against me because I talked about their products on my blog but forgot to use the "®" symbol. I have a feeling our personalities would clash 😂. Regardless, I still like their stuff.
Hi! nice video ,,,, Can you leave the batterie connected to the car when connecting a float charger for the winter or do you need to disconnect the batterie. Thanks
I use the old school charger for a discharge battery most smart charger over rate there current. So I use the old school charger for the bulk charge then use a smart charger to do the rest. If you got a real bad discharge battery the smart charger may not work because The battery us to low for the charger to see to turn on. But 95 percent of the time just use a smart charger plug and play.
Can i use normal "intelligent" charger as a battey maintaining charger? If i wanna store my motorcycle battery for winter, do i need some charger that is specifically maintaining charger? Or is just normal 4A intelligent charger enough to charge my battery once a month?
You just want a charger that's also a maintainer or has a "maintenance" or "float" mode if you're going to leave it connected for a long time. Most modern chargers have that, they just all use different language to describe the same function. If the charge explicitly says on the unit itself to disconnect after the battery is charged, then I wouldn't leave it unattended for any length of time. I'd just Google your make and model of charger and see what it advertises in the specs or manual. If you type in your search term and include "manual .pdf" it will usually show up.
I have an AGM battery on my car which I left for months outside this pass winter. I had to jumped start the car but then the battery started getting hot and released a really bad odor. Does that mean that the car is overcharging the battery too?
4-amps is not adequate to charge a 200Ah AGM battery in any amount of time. Most AGMs are C20 and require a charging amperage of 20% of capacity or a 20amp charger. Minimum of 10%. They also are designed to discharge at that rate. Don't hook up a 1kw inverter drawing 80amps to one 200Ah battery. Also a 200Ah AGM battery completely discharged that needs 200Ah is toast.
Looking to avoid filling up my 2018 maxima every 2.5 days because of using my A/C for 12 hour shifts for the upcoming summer. Started looking into portable battery trickle chargers and maintainers, or dual battery isolation kits, or portable Air conditioners with accessory battery packs, etc. Looking to see if anyone here has been in a similar situation and found a solution where they can either run their car's ac off accessory mode and preserve the car's gas mileage or use a recommended portable air conditioner. thanks in advance
Hey buddy I have a question I picked up a 1.25 AMP Battery Tender for my 12V 7AH Batteries to charge my Scooter Batteries is that the right charger for scooter batteries will appreciate your reply Back will help thanks
The “dumb” chargers have a very important role in battery preservation since they are the only thing that can bring a dead retired battery back to life. I’ve taken batteries that have sit behind someone’s barn for a decade and brought them back to life with a high amperage jult.... You can take a battery that has 0.00 volts for the last 10 years and bring it back to life but it would not be possible with these new chargers.
@@igrewold It doesn’t matter how old the lead is. If you run a battery new or old all the way down a newer smart charger will throw a light and say replace battery.... I dont have the money to be buying a battery everytime my kid leaves the dome light on. Take that same battery and put it on a standard charger and it will charge it no questions asked..
Just bought a $59.95 Deltran Battery Tender from Amazon to recharge a totally 'dead' DieHard 12V for my '02 Camaro SS but something's killing my 7yr old battery slowly after leaving it intact for a few months. I'll get to troubleshooting that later however Sears is no more here in New Hampshire and customer service says no go on their warranty. Likewise I don't want to buy another $200 so I'm trying this 1.5 Amp trickle charger and hoping for the best. So far the green and red lights are flashing and operatively working.
@@xravenhairsexgod A battery tender will not charge a depleted battery correctly it takes a battery charger to do this however a tender is a great item and can make battery life much longer. If you have a battery going dead after a short while you could have a parasitic draw on the battery from the vehicle or a bad cell in battery,you would need to narrow that down first.
I had 2 x 12v batteries in an electric wheel chair that were complete flat dead. I put my 6amp dumb charger on it for like over 24 hours and got nothing. I hooked it up to my running truck for 10 minutes and still nothing. Would not even light up my tester or cause a spark accross the terminals. That's a dead battery.