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Having left the Century battery charger I have had for over 15 years out in the rain, I bought the Schumacher SE-82-6 manual charger as a replacement. (I like the manual versions, as they will charge your battery when completely "dead" when automatic ones won't.) Wanting to get the lawnmower battery charged (for the first time this season) as quickly as possible before the grass got any taller, I yanked the charger out of the box and hooked it up, setting it to 6 amps. However, when I looked at the gauges on the front of the charger, I was confused. My old charger had a needle which went from a light colored yellow at the bottom of the gauge when the battery was fully depleted, and all the way to the top for a full charge, indicated by dark red. This scale had the familiar yellow-to-red scale, but had two different columns of numbers ranging from 0 to 100 CHARGE on one side and 8 to 0 on the other. As there is no LED light on this model to let you know if it's still charging (or even if it is on), you can seriously damage your battery if you don't unplug it (there's no on/off switch) when it's charged, so I went back and read the instructions to see what this gauge meant. (I had only glanced at them before, but figured "How complicated can it be? It's a battery charger!") Unfortunately, in an effort to save money, Schumacher has crammed about 6 different models in one instruction book, with no diagrams or separation between different models, so you have to figure out if this feature or that pertains to the model you have. Then when you finally do find the right section, it is still not clear. So I called the help line, which was not much fun either. They said they are in the process of changing the instruction booklet, so future buyers may not have this problem.
To save everyone else that experience, I am going to give the brief version of how the gauge works:
When the needle is at the TOP of the scale (red for 6 amp charging mode), the battery is LOW (or dead); when at the BOTTOM of the scale (light yellow) it is CHARGED. For the 2 amp charging mode, there is a "mini" scale, indicated by a line drawn across the gauge. When charging in the 2 amp mode, the needle will be near the top of that line (orange) and when fully charged, at the bottom (yellow).
As this is the first time I used this charger, obviously I can't speak to its durability. They definitely need to improve the instructions, which they are working on. I do wish they used copper clamps instead of pot metal, but few inexpensive chargers these days have them; in any case, they are easily changed to better clamps if desired. The gauge is confusing, (actually completely the opposite of my old charger!), however, once you know how to read it, (UP/RED is low, DOWN/YELLOW is charged) you can live with that. With this in mind, for a manual battery charger that works quickly, if it holds up over time as others have said, it's a decent buy. Oh, and don't leave it out in the rain....
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I bought an SE-82-6 about 15 years ago. I long since lost the manual and went online to find one, knowing that I probably would be unsuccessful...after all it was a 15 year old product. I was surprised to see they're still on the market, but really it's no surprise. Mine differs only from the dial background, from what I can tell. The point is I have used this regularly for ages, keep it stored in a dusty area, have gotten it wet, and have dropped it many times, yet I'm charging a mower battery with it as we speak. Maybe this is a special case, but 15+ years on a charger that I have, uh, not exactly taken good care of is outstanding.
