Heavy-Duty Charger, but a little slow
Deltran Battery Tender 12-Volt 800 milliamp Waterproof Battery Charger
The Battery Tender Waterproof Tender operates in essentially 3 stages. It first initiates an absorption charge that attempts to charge your battery to 14.5 VDC at up to 0.8A (or 800mA). This bit of information was not readily advertised, so I was concerned when I heard my battery making gurgling noises while the LED was "amber" for the past 8 hours. This battery was only 2 years old with less than 5000 miles and had been maintained since day 1, so I was sure it wasn't a problem with the battery.
My previous charger, a Black & Decker / Vector 2A "smart" maintainer tried to keep my battery voltage at 14.75 VDC at 2A for over 24 hours. Needless to say, I was concerned when I saw this happening with a brand new Battery Tender. I dug around on their website and discovered a PDF that indicated the Tender would try to reach 14.5 VDC, at which point it would switch to a trickling charge and finally the maintenance charge. I logged all of the readings and confirmed that once the battery reached 14.4-14.5 VDC, it would start to trickle down finally remaining at 13.12 VDC @ 20mA. A modern car's parasitic draw is about 1-2 mA, so the 20mA maintenance charge is to compensate for the parasitic draw and for self-discharging of the battery. I discovered the Tender does a much better job at a maintenance charge because I have yet to see the Tender go into Amber mode, whereas my Vector/B&D occasionally switches back and forth even on a fully charged battery.
The Tender Waterproof is fully encapsulated with a thermally conductive potting material. This makes the unit quite heavy for such a small device. It uses a quick-disconnect 2-terminal fitting that is commonly used for battery chargers/maintainers. It comes with ring terminals or large battery clamps all fused with a 7.5A ATC fuse. I made my own wiring harness with smaller alligator clips since I don't have room under the hood for large clamps, and I do not want to permanently install a set of ring terminals that can short out or cause other problems in the long-run.
Pros: Battery Tender has an excellent reputation for making reliable chargers. The Waterproof unit is quite durable and is insulated from shock, water, corrosion, extreme temperatures and other environmental variables.
Cons: At 800mA max current capacity, this charger will work rather slowly for 50Ah or larger capacity batteries.
Overall: If you're using the charger in an environment subject to cold or hot temperature swings with plenty of moisture, I recommend the Waterproof unit over the Tender Jr or Tender Plus.
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Great Product
I really like it. It looks really well made. And it works very well. It charged my bike quickly when I accidentally drained the battery because I left the lights on. I bought the 25 ft extension with it also. The only thing that you have to be aware when using this charger/tender is that the battery must NOT be completely drained out. If the battery reads less than 3 Volts( I think), it will NOT charge it. There is only one light on the charger. It will light orange when it is charging and it will turn green when the battery is fully charged (or it won't light at all if the battery is completely dead). If you own a motorcycle the supplied hook up will allow you to charge the battery without having to remove it from bike. The only downside it that this model is on the more expensive side. Having said that, being water proof and having a built-in fail safe switch (won't hurt the charger or battery if you hook it up wrong) is worth it, I think.
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