Battery Charger Recommendation

2012Coleman wrote:
My purpose would be to keep the battery maintained during periods of non use. Not sure what is underkill or overkill - hence my question.

I may be too late or not.

I bumped into these years ago reading up on how to maintain your deep cycle batteries.

http://www.batteryminders.com/12-volt-maintenance-charger-desfulator-with-warranty

The VDC Electronics battery minder. It has temperature compensated charging and has a pulse desulfate mode.

The 1510 model comes with the ring terminal assembly. The 1500 does not have the ring terminals assembly, you have to buy it separate. The ring terminal setup makes it quick and easy to plug in the maintainer after a campout and not deal with the evil battery cover straps to put alligator clips on. Amazon and others sell both the 1500 and the 1510.

My camper is hooked up all the time to the VDC unit when not camping and even when camping I have a Progressive Dynamics converter with the charge wizard. And these VDC units will not boil out your battery. I was on 8 years with the first set of batteries in the camper and we dry camp too. Now on the 2nd set of batteries.

In the winter, I use these battery maintainers on all my batteries now. Camper, tractor, lawn mower, the truck etc. Using a maintainer with the desulfate mode will greatly extend the life of your batteries. You can if wanted, gang batteries together if they are out of the vehicle on one unit. For the first time ever for me, I can get 6 years out of a little lawn tractor battery. Before using the VDC units 3 years was it if they lasted that long.

It appears the Schumacher you picked has some form of desulfate mode, it most likely is a high voltage desulfate. Better than not having it, just a different way of doing it.

If you have not bought yet, look into the VDC unit.

Hope this helps

John