Battery Charger

pnichols wrote:

MNtundraRet wrote:
After being sued a few times for damage being done by their charger from miss-use by some fool, the legal department comes into play and all the higher powered chargers (i.e. 40 or more amps) disappear from the market.

It probably isn't the 40 amps that may have made them "dangerous" to ancillary equipment in the wrong hands. It's more likely the high 14's to low 15's voltage that those chargers could go up to that was the cause of component and circuit breakdowns, as they probably weren't clamped at a high of, say, only 14.6 volts.

I'm curious as to whether those old B&D chargers were power factor corrected? If so, I'd sure like a 30 amp version to use with my little 650 watt generator for dedicated battery charging.

I have had my Schummacher SC-12000A multi-stage charger for more than 5 years. The charger was developed for the racing industry. The charger is heavy duty and still works as advertised.

The real problem is that these type chargers will push the voltage up to (15.0 to 16.1 volts - higher for colder temperatures with current output of 15 amps) when finishing charging in the last hour or so. The "Bulk" charge current of 40 amps at around 14.5 amps will fall back to "Absorption" around 85%soc for battery(s) being charged. This if fine for batteries not connected to any 12 volt circuit not connected to equipment that has that has it's circuits powered when turned off. Quite common for TV,s and other equipment now days.