Battery Chargers
Battery chargers are very similar to jump starters. The key difference is that a jump starter is a device that you can use to recharge batteries without being hooked up to a power source. Jump starters are usually used for heavy duty batteries like car batteries, boat batteries, and so on. A battery charger connects to your typical outlet to provide power to your car battery.
When charging batteries you need to be careful to not leave the charger on the battery for too long. A few minutes isn’t a big deal. The battery can be weakened – meaning the amount of power it can hold will be less, or the battery could lose the ability to hold a charge.
A lot of battery chargers have features to prevent such scenarios from occurring. Newer chargers have are able to determine if the battery is full and then it will stop charging. Some also have a trickle mode where you can leave the charger on and it will keep the battery topped off without damaging it.
Here are a few battery chargers that are highly reviewed from Amazon. If you’re looking to purchase one, these would be the ones to examine first.
| It can charge both 6V and 12V batteries, with different amp selection. Different from some of the older style charger, this one will automatically shutoff when charge is full. So you can plugin, clamp on, turn on and walk away doing other things. Never worry about overcharge the battery.
It is light weight and great tool to have, if you have a lot of batteries around. We use it to charge and check the batteries for the large UPS power supplies in our office. Properly maintained battery can extend its life so much, worth many times the cost of this charger. |
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| This unit is a workhorse for the money. I use it on my Corvette in the winter and in the summer I have my snowblower attached to the battery tender. This product is compact in size and simple to use. It came with different adapters that enabled use with different battery charging requirements.
I recently gifted a unit to my father in-law who leaves 2 cars in Florida year round. A must have for anyone who has a vechicle or seasonal piece of equipment. |
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| Battery chargers and I have never gotten along. I actually once sold, what turned out to be, a perfectly good old snow plow truck because I thought something serious was wrong with the engine. The charger showed the battery was good, so I figured it had to be the engine and it was too old and rusty to put more money into it. The guy came to pick it up, gave me $200…stuck a new battery in it, and drove it away. It was a bad charger not a bad battery.
Recently, using what I thought was a more reliable charger, I couldn’t get my batteries to fully charge. Rather than blaming the batteries this time, I purchased the Schumacher. I read good things about the brand on the web and took the plunge. I couldn’t be happier. This is a hi-tech charger with all the bells and whistles. It is “stupid proof” as well, and lets you know what is going on as it charges. I love it! I am now able to fully charge all my batteries, and the other charger went into the trash. I highly recommend this automatic speed charger. |
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| I am very happy with this charger. It will constantly display either the charge percentage or current battery voltage. I tried to charge an old jet ski battery with it and it was able to tell me the battery was bad. I have three diesels and they have large batteries. This is capable of putting a good charge on them when dead in only a few hours. The cords are long enough to set the charger outside the car, so you can close the hood when charging. My only complaint would be that the clamp jaws don’t open wide enough to grab a large battery terminal clamp. |
These are the top reviewed battery chargers.