List Price: $44.99
Sale Price: $40.25
Today's Bonus: 11% Off
I purchased one of these to charge some sealed lead acid batteries, and it works like a champ. Hook it up to the battery, plug it in and let it do its thing.
That being said, there are a couple of quirks the user should be aware of. The % capacity display is not at all accurate. It will typically state that a battery is 95% full, then increase slowly until saying it is fully charged, and on maintaining. I used this with several 9Ah 12V batteries, and some 8.5Ah 6V batteries. All of these were tested before & after with a BK Precision 601 professional battery analyzer. The readings never agreed, but that is not necessarily a problem.
BK Precision 601 Battery Capacity Analyzer
While the $400+ BK 601 is a great tool, it is not necessary to know the precise values of capacity, load and no-load voltage or internal resistance (unless you want to know these things of course!) If you are maintaining SLA batteries of a smaller capacity, say anywhere from 3 to 20Ah or so, just hook up the Schumacher and ignore the initial reading. If it says 95%, the capacity might be 80% or might be 45% (I saw readings higher and lower on the 601) No matter. Let the Schumacher charge until it says 'Fully Charged' or 'battery maintaining'. But do not stop charging just yet. At that point, the actual capacity might only be at 95 or 97% (as verified by the 601). Let it go another 15 minutes or half an hour. Then go ahead and disconnect. By that time, nearly all the batteries I tested were at the full 100% according to the BK 601.
If the battery is too far gone, the Schumacher will let you know. There are a few batteries here and there that will accept a charge from the Schumacher, but may not perform as well as new batteries. Outside of a professional analyzer, there is not much you can do about them. They will work, but may only have 90% or so of the charge. The Schumacher does as best as it can with them.
It also oworked well at auto-detecting 6V batteries. Very simple to use, and for easy operation and good performance, and a great price, I give it 5 stars. Just be aware of its limitations.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
After receiving this gadget, I realize that I probably could have used the smaller SP2 unit, but now that I've had it a few weeks, I'm quite pleased with how it works.It is pretty large, but still only about a quarter the sise of a car charger. It's roughly the size of a brick, and has a big LED readout that tells you what it's doing readable from a good distance.
So far, I've only used the alligator clips for my motorcycle battery, but this also comes with a connector that you can attach permanently to the battery and has a simple connector to the charger cord. That means you don't have to remove the seat to hook up the charger. That seems pretty useful, and if I ever decide to unhook my battery and risk losing all the settings on my stereo, I'll install it.
I think something like this is essential in places that have a proper winter that keeps you from riding for weeks at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment