Curious about the "smart battery chargers", what problems have you had
with them?

TMT

"They shut off or report error conditions, where I think the battery
can be still charged. "

I have seen the same behavior.

I have been "testing" different smart chargers to hopefully find one
that works the way I want it to.

I have had some success with using a "dumb" charger to partially charge
a battery and then to finish charging with one of the "smart" ones.

I also have had chargers NOT shut off when the charge was finished. I
have also had SLA batteries burst because of too rapid a charge rate
when using a smart charger that was meant to charge SLA batteries of
the proper capacity.

In my opinion, "smart" chargers have yet to reach a status where I
would trust them unattended.

The two main brands of "smart" chargers (Vector and Schumcher) are
showing up under different brand names everywhere....they are all the
same chargers under their cases.

TMT

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
"They shut off or report error conditions, where I think the battery
can be still charged. "

I have seen the same behavior.

I have been "testing" different smart chargers to hopefully find one
that works the way I want it to.

I have had some success with using a "dumb" charger to partially charge
a battery and then to finish charging with one of the "smart" ones.

I also have had chargers NOT shut off when the charge was finished. I
have also had SLA batteries burst because of too rapid a charge rate
when using a smart charger that was meant to charge SLA batteries of
the proper capacity.

In my opinion, "smart" chargers have yet to reach a status where I
would trust them unattended.

The two main brands of "smart" chargers (Vector and Schumcher) are
showing up under different brand names everywhere....they are all the
same chargers under their cases.

I have a Vector, but I don't really trust it like I do my Solar and
Schumacher 1.5 Amp maintainers. Those have kept good batteries "up" for
5 years or more.

On 20 Jan 2006 11:05:24 -0800, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:

"They shut off or report error conditions, where I think the battery
can be still charged. "

I have seen the same behavior.

I have been "testing" different smart chargers to hopefully find one
that works the way I want it to.

I have had some success with using a "dumb" charger to partially charge
a battery and then to finish charging with one of the "smart" ones.

I also have had chargers NOT shut off when the charge was finished. I
have also had SLA batteries burst because of too rapid a charge rate
when using a smart charger that was meant to charge SLA batteries of
the proper capacity.

In my opinion, "smart" chargers have yet to reach a status where I
would trust them unattended.

The two main brands of "smart" chargers (Vector and Schumcher) are
showing up under different brand names everywhere....they are all the
same chargers under their cases.

TMT

I have had completely satisfactory performance from Minn-Kota
automatic chargers on deep-cycle batteries in my boat.