Simple 110V-12V car battery charger?
I'm exhausted and depressed after reading reviews on Amazon. "Multistage" chargers that have only 2 stages (sometimes 1). Bulk stage running at 16-17V 'cause some idiot imbedded a "desulfation" mode...
Forum Discussion
The title of this thread is "Simple 110V-12V car battery charger?"
Why is it that a "simple" discussion seems to always degenerate into a discussion assuming "cheap" ... especially when the OP's opening words said nothing about price?
What Almot wanted is a product that "does the job". To me a product that does the job is simple and simple means minimum intervention by me ... IAW a set-it-and-forget-it product.
Sure there's cheap stuff out there - which is basically just a power supply that you have to fiddle with to get output voltage where you think it needs to be for your particular kind of batteries and then monitor the current flow along with watch the elapsed time.
I have a four-stage transformerless all electronic automatic (yep - there's that word again) water resistant battery charger with multiple outputs for up to three(3) batteries and it's still working after at least 20 years. It's simple to use without exhaustion or depression, but it was a buy-it-right/buy-it-once product that wasn't "cheap". The price of it divided by at least 20 comes down to around $15 per year, or less, price of ownership for battery charging that takes none of my time.
My only question is ... why oh why haven't I permanently mounted that high-end charger in our RV yet? Maybe it's because the cheap good old Sears 2-10-50 rusty charger stuck in one of the RV's storage bays plays so well with the RV's nasty converter? :h
Why is it that a "simple" discussion seems to always degenerate into a discussion assuming "cheap" ... especially when the OP's opening words said nothing about price?
What Almot wanted is a product that "does the job". To me a product that does the job is simple and simple means minimum intervention by me ... IAW a set-it-and-forget-it product.
Sure there's cheap stuff out there - which is basically just a power supply that you have to fiddle with to get output voltage where you think it needs to be for your particular kind of batteries and then monitor the current flow along with watch the elapsed time.
I have a four-stage transformerless all electronic automatic (yep - there's that word again) water resistant battery charger with multiple outputs for up to three(3) batteries and it's still working after at least 20 years. It's simple to use without exhaustion or depression, but it was a buy-it-right/buy-it-once product that wasn't "cheap". The price of it divided by at least 20 comes down to around $15 per year, or less, price of ownership for battery charging that takes none of my time.
My only question is ... why oh why haven't I permanently mounted that high-end charger in our RV yet? Maybe it's because the cheap good old Sears 2-10-50 rusty charger stuck in one of the RV's storage bays plays so well with the RV's nasty converter? :h
