Harbor Freight Battery Charger

[Gjac]

I recently bought the HF 10 amp battery charger. Battery was at 12.25 v when charger was plugged in. It got very hot to the touch( I am in Florida now). My question is do these have fans inside that are suppose to cool the unit? I did not hear any fan running. It did charge the battery and the green light came on.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Nice comment Big Buford 🙂

A battery charger is only as smart as its owner...

[big_buford]

LittleBill wrote:

Gjac wrote:
Thanks for the reply's, my 40 amp B&D has a fan. The HF battery charger works well and was cheap $29 with a coupon and a free mulimeter.

why in the world would you use the HF charger when you have the BD 40?

I have no experience with the BD unit so I cant comment on that.

The HF unit started life as the redheaded step child, thrown in the storage bay for use as a back-up plan incase the converter went out in the middle of a trip. I had read the reviews on here saying it was a decent unit for the price, so for 29 bucks seemed like a good fit.

Fast foward about 6 months, I came across a deal on some 8D agm batteries that had been sitting for 18mo's and needed to be charged back up.

I have about 5-6 diffrent chargers at my disposal, smart ones, shop chargers, small ones and big ones. Somewhere between hooking up every charger I could get my hands on, checking voltages and amp output, i found the HF unit lands you smack dab in the middle of where you want to be voltage wise.

I wrang it's neck bringing all three batts back up one after the other. It charged smooth and voltage rose slowly to where I had decided to end the charge. It did get warm, but never missed a beat.

No longer the redheaded step child, it earned my respect.

[Gjac]

LittleBill wrote:

Gjac wrote:
Thanks for the reply's, my 40 amp B&D has a fan. The HF battery charger works well and was cheap $29 with a coupon and a free mulimeter.

why in the world would you use the HF charger when you have the BD 40?

I am in Florida now and I bought a boat here and my MH is back in Ct. and needed a charger for the boat batteries. Beside I thought it would be a good excuse to try the manual side of the charger to equalize my 8 year old 6 v batteries when I get home per Mexicowanderer's posts.

[mena661]

I have a B&D and the HF charger. Both work great. When I found one of my battery interconnects broken and two of my batts were down, I used the HF in 6V mode to top them off.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I own a B&D 40 amp charger. Best 50/90, 50/89, 50/88, 50/87 -- -- -- -- -- charger ever built IMHO.

[LittleBill]

Gjac wrote:
Thanks for the reply's, my 40 amp B&D has a fan. The HF battery charger works well and was cheap $29 with a coupon and a free mulimeter.

why in the world would you use the HF charger when you have the BD 40?

[RoyB]

My plan B is the B&D 40AMP VEC1093DBD smart mode portable charger and my 2kW Generator sitting in the back on my truck bed...

Being smart mode I can re-charge my 50% charge state battery bank in as little as three hours of generator run time... Saved the day several times when doing my SKYWARN-RACES-MARS Emergency Radio ops in my truck when off the power grid somewhere...



Roy Ken

[Gjac]

Thanks for the reply's, my 40 amp B&D has a fan. The HF battery charger works well and was cheap $29 with a coupon and a free mulimeter.

[aruba5er]

No fan . Yes they can get hot but it probably only gets around 120f max. but that is hotter than you care to touch.

[2oldman]

At least it was cheap.

[hugemoth]

I have the HF 10 amp charger that is a few years old, it doesn't have a fan.