If I was to buy a trickle charger which one?

I've heard that some trickle chargers, never turn completely off, even when batt. is fully charged & can cause damage to the batt. by overcharging. Others switch "completely off" when batt. is fully charged, & only come back on when batt. slightly loses a little of it's charge. Not sure about tender/maintainers, but older chargers had a gauge, that never went down to completely "0", it kept charging, a tiny amount until charger was disconnected. The newer chargers have an indicator light. When batt. is completely charged, the charger turns completely off & the green light comes on, till the batt. loses a slight amount of charge, then turns back on till batt. is fully charged again. Is this a concern with tenders ?

 

been using a battery tender on an 8 year old battery in my boat. not the fastest, but i dont use my boat that often without giving it enough time to go into float. get the correct battery tender for your truck and youll be good.

 

the battery tenders will float (on and off) to maintain a full charge.

 

Battery tender will never stop charging, and will slowly drain the life out of your battery. The only reason they don't kill them in a week is because they're low current.
They are NOT good for your battery.
Get a NOKO.

 

NOCO is the best! Theyre not cheap but theyre really great!

 

I currently have a battery that I have been using with no issue since 2012 on the battery tender. Can you explain if its an issue with a certain model? From my understanding it automatically changes the charging mode depending on the charge level of the battery.

 

I use a Deltran Battery Tender Jr on my Drag Race car !!

 

i carry a noco genius g3500 tender in the truck to keep both batteries in the truck maintained

ideally you want something that will give more than 1amp to handle bigger car batts

NOCO Genius G3500 6V/12V 3.5 Amp Battery Charger and Maintainer

https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-G750-UltraSafe-Battery-Charger/dp/B004LWVEKS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1538066266&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=car+battery+charger&th=1

 

I just punched up trickle chargers maintain/float mode, & from what I read when on float it is still charging from 0.2 & 0.6 amps

 

@smiles2 ... ^^^ That.

 

Just from the reviews on different chargers/maintainers they all seem too be prone to either working as they should or not work after a short period of time.

Roll the dice I guess.

 

Yep, the more amp, the faster it will charge.

 

No need to roll the dice. You could make an educated decision. The CTEK and NOCO sites have lots of good info to help you decide your specific needs, as do some independent reviews.

I have a

$155 CTEK Multi US 7002, 12V Battery Charger for Cars, SUVs and Trucks, All Weather Smart Charger, Battery Tender Charger, Battery Desulfator, Battery Maintainer, Power Supply Mode and Reconditioning Mode

CTEK (56-353) MULTI US 7002 that I chose for my deep cycle Northstar marine battery (expensive) that I use in my trailer. I have no need for one for my truck. It's been great.

No need to go with the cheapo, and potentially useless or damaging, 40-year old technology for old "trickle chargers" any more than you should keep changing your oil every 3000 miles "because that's how grand pappy always did it in his Buick."

 

This is what I'm using !!!

 

One thing that can be confusing to some people, with respect to chargers, is that these modern fancy chargers don't just switch on and pour power into whatever they're hooked up to. They actually need to sense a voltage before they're willing to start charging. This can make them seem "dead" if you try something silly, like hooking the probes of a multi-meter up to the charging terminals without a battery -- the charger won't register on the multimeter because it won't turn on under those circumstances. Similarly, if you try to charge a battery that is *completely* discharged, it won't do it. I've on occasion had to deal with batteries that were run *completely* dead, and in those instances, you need to jump start the charger by feeding it a voltage from another battery briefly until there is enough charge in the dead battery to keep the charger happy.

 

Murderer! (of batteries).
Not joking. Those will destroy batteries by overcharging.

 

I use a basic old 750mA Battery Tender Jr. for my lead acid wet cell batteries. And have a CTEK for the AGMs that I don't keep in cars.

 

re Deltran Battery Tender Plus, I used one of those on my BMW motorcycle and got 7 years out of the battery, and 50000 miles.

i characterized it with a volt meter to verify, its a true 4-stage 'smart charger', and is temperature compensating too, as long as the battery is at the same ambient temperature as the tender. it starts out with a battery test, then does a bulk charge phase at its maximum current (1.5 amps or something?), followed by an absorption phase of elevated 14.4V, then reverts to a maintenance/trickle phase of 13.5V or so, and once a month does a shorter absorption phase to 'wake' the battery up.

I've used Deltrans for years, never had one kill a battery. obviously, a 1-2A tender won't *charge* a car/truck sized battery very fast.

for my truck, I have a 15 watt solar charger/tender I put on the roof of the truck and plug in when its going to be parked for over a week.

 

It's hooked up to my Drag race car 24/7 , never had a problem

Only thing that is killing my batteries is a locked out distributor and 11.75:1 comp

 

Damn, 11.75:1, guess it isn't boosted then haha