[NLRS] Battery ChargeRS

[John (JK) Kalenowsky, K9JK]

"Seconding" Glen's and Zack's comments...VERY nice to have a 
battery charger that can select between Gel, AGM (which I PREFER 
over Gel) and 'conventional' wet Lead-Acid batteries.

At the South Milwaukee Swapfest this past July, I came across a 
Schumacher SpeedCharge unit that I think was only $25 or so. It 
has the selection for the three types, selectable 2, 8 or 12 Amp 
Charge rates and a display that reads out the voltage or "% 
Charged". While I'm a little dubious of the "% Charged" 
business, by watching the voltage, it has worked well charging 
some 7Ah Gel Cells (at the 2A rate) and my 70Ah AGM (at the 12 A 
rate). I've not had the opportunity to try it on any of the 
starting batteries (wet) in our vehicles (and I guess I'm 
thankful for that ;-).

73, JK

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Glen Overby" <goverby at charter.net>
To: <nlrs at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2011 13:00
Subject: Re: [NLRS] Battery charge regulator


>
>
>
> Zack Widup wrote:
>> Several years ago I got a Vector 2/10/15A smart charger. It 
>> has a setting
>
> For those who want to take Zac's suggestion, Vector was bought 
> by Black &
> Decker a few years ago.  I think Home Depot carries B&D 
> products, and
> amazon.com has some chargers.  Fleet Farm in Lakeville didn't 
> have any B&D
> chargers earlier this month.
>
> I browsed the Black & Decker web site and found two that have 
> battery type
> selections: VEC1089ABD and VEC1095ABD.
>
> I have a Vector charger and a Peak charger that was 
> manufactured by Vector,
> both which are supposed to detect the type of battery it's 
> charging and do
> the right thing, but I'm not sure that they do.
>
> Glen
>