Car Battery Charger

KevinVarnes

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Just curious if any of you fellas had any recommendations on a good car battery charger. I have a 2/10/50 amp Die Hard that has served me well for 25 years, but I think it might be fading. I don't need a wheeled cart charger. I like the versatility of mine since I can charge slowly at 2 amps or 10 amps if I need it a little faster, and the 50A boost comes in handy sometimes as well. I also like that it is fully automatic so I can hook it up and plug it in and leave it to do its thing.

This is basically the same as what I have right now, but mine isn't all rusty and dented :2confused:
1758410003532.png

I actually kind of like this one since it can do AGM and standard which my current charger cannot do. Plus it has fancy cable storage which mine does not have.

I haven't seen too many Shumacher's with real great reviews and I'm good to buy another updated Die Hard version of what I have right now, but I thought I'd see what you guys are running.
 
CTEK 4.3. It reconditions too and I've used it and it lasted a year on a battery that should have been recycled. Works on AGM too.
 
If your willing to order from ole' Canuckistan over here, the Motomaster Eliminator Precision series are a line of chargers that i have used alot and they have served me very well, I just use the 1.5amp model for my dads truck as a maintainer but they also have some 7/1 amp models which work the same way, worth looking into
 
CTEK 4.3. It reconditions too and I've used it and it lasted a year on a battery that should have been recycled. Works on AGM too.

I have one of those CTEK chargers and it doesn't work well for me. It goes into error mode about half the time I try to use it and doesn't charge the battery.

I have had better luck with cheap chargers off amazon....

That model has been dead reliable on whatever I hook it up to.

If I need a high amp charger my beat-up 15 year old Schumacher gets the job done at up to 50 amps....

1758425557638.png
 
I basically have the Die Hard version of that thing. I've read so many poor reviews of recent Schumacher stuff though that I'm not sure about them. Back in the day I wouldn't have thought twice about them.
 
Just curious if any of you fellas had any recommendations on a good car battery charger. I have a 2/10/50 amp Die Hard that has served me well for 25 years, but I think it might be fading. I don't need a wheeled cart charger. I like the versatility of mine since I can charge slowly at 2 amps or 10 amps if I need it a little faster, and the 50A boost comes in handy sometimes as well. I also like that it is fully automatic so I can hook it up and plug it in and leave it to do its thing.

This is basically the same as what I have right now, but mine isn't all rusty and dented :2confused:
View attachment 14668

I actually kind of like this one since it can do AGM and standard which my current charger cannot do. Plus it has fancy cable storage which mine does not have.

I haven't seen too many Shumacher's with real great reviews and I'm good to buy another updated Die Hard version of what I have right now, but I thought I'd see what you guys are running.

I have one of those CTEK chargers and it doesn't work well for me. It goes into error mode about half the time I try to use it and doesn't charge the battery.

I have had better luck with cheap chargers off amazon....

That model has been dead reliable on whatever I hook it up to.

If I need a high amp charger my beat-up 15 year repair shoprepairold Schumacher gets the job done at up to 50 amps....

View attachment 14670
These chargers were designed Way back; The one I had in the 70's was bought by a guy that died in 60.
They are simple. 18V transformer,an SCR, and a couple of resistors and transistors.
They do not deal with bad cells very well, it fucks the whole circuit up. I used the ones that were fried for power supplies; the 50A transformer runs a cb and linear pretty well.
I ran a repair shop in the 80-90's, and saw those every spring, as people tried to charge wasted batteries.
 
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I also have a CTEK. I've actually had two of them. I upgraded from the 3300 to the MUS 4.3 in 2017 because the latter has more charging stages and a more detailed LED status display, but both have worked well.

20250921_202751 (Large).JPG
 
I also have a CTEK. I've actually had two of them. I upgraded from the 3300 to the MUS 4.3 in 2017 because the latter has more charging stages and a more detailed LED status display, but both have worked well.

View attachment 14690
Looks like you lift has a vacancy.

I use Battery Tenders for most of my cars, but do have one CTEK
 

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