If you want a dependable, long-lived battery, you’ve got to keep it charged — and that goes double for vehicles that see infrequent use, like boats, lawn tractors, and your babied classic car. Schumacher designed this on-board charger to be mounted inside your vehicle, close to the battery, so a topped-off battery is always just an extension cord away.
The SE-1-12S measures 2 x 8 x 9 inches and weighs about two pounds, so you can probably find room for it in all but the most cramped spaces. Like other trickle-type chargers, after it fully charges the battery it shuts off to prevent damage — it then periodically checks the voltage and applies juice as needed.
At about $30 it’s cheap reliable insurance against a dead battery.
SE-1-12S [Schumacher]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [B0000AXTUY] [What’s This?]
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6 Responses to Never Look For Your Battery Charger Again
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I prefer the Battery Tender version of onboard charger. Most battery manufacturers recommend/offer multistage chargers over simple on-off style chargers.
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These work great….. Had a few and love them for boats…
Here we go again. 🙂
These chargers work great. I have a ten year old WestCo Marine AGM battery on the Craftsman-branded version and it’s still going strong. It’s in a car that sits all Winter and only runs a couple times a month in the Summer.
All that hoo-ha about “multistage” chargers is true; they will make a battery last longer. But if you start with a charged battery (you just ran the car, right?) and don’t need it to last 30 years, the on/off chargers will do just as well in my professional opinion and personal experience.
Is this better than installing some pigtails and running to an external charger? It’s still a simple plug away from being connected, but you can charge multiple batteries with a single charger.
Tony:
I assume you mean charge multiple batteries one-at-a-time, right?
I actually do that. I have pigtails on all of my cars that I use these chargers on. that way I can swap chargers around as I rotate through the herd. I use a pigtail with alligator clips for batteries not in a car. The current Sears version includes a short pigtail and alligator clips.
For the pigtails (in-fact, all my DC power systems), I’ve standardized on the Anderson PowerPoles. They are great little genderless power connectors.
I’ve got one of these installed on my 49′ Chevy and it’s awesome. I’m searching for the electrical short but in the mean time I never have a dead battery. Highly recommended.