Señor Vulcanrider your point is ABSOLUTELY valid. There is no one way to satisfy all requirements. To vastly lessen vulnerability to unintended overcharge the incorporation of a spring-wound timer in the input 120vac line is STRONGLY recommended.
This is a battery charger not a converter, not a maintainer, nor anything else. We old farts dealt with charging batteries the way our grandfathers did. With a battery charger. Wind er up and let her rip. Hundreds of thousands of campers, trailers and motorhomes were built before the advent of BW Magnateks's ferroresonant converter with it's absurd 3-amp battery charging bleed resistor.
When I first started driving the generator was the only way for an auto engine to recharge a battery. A 45-amp generator was considered absurd overkill, and was directed toward fire engines with their monster 1/4 horsepower DC motor driven sirens.
Lead acid batteries are wicked, poisonous and dangerous. I wish they could go away forever. They are temperamental, sometimes acting like Patty McCormick in the movie The Bad Seed.
But they are unforgiving and just too danged expensive to ignore.
Mistreat a battery, go camping and find you have 30% of the battery capacity you thought you had. Work 11-1/2 months for that?
The difference between a casual weekender or someone who camps via power pedestal versus long duration off-grid boondocking is shocking.
So a person purchases a "high-end" smart charger and it does not charge the batteries. Where do they go from there? Exactly where do they go from there?
