"John H." wrote in message
...

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:45:49 GMT, wrote:


That's not a 3 stage smart charger. You will have a tough time
properly charging a deep cycle battery using that. Walmart sells a
smaller Schumacher "smart charger" for about $75 that is actully
pretty good. It will also properly charge AGM's and Gell Cells if you
ever have the need.


I think you may be correct. This charger has been around for a while.
Maybe
I owe myself a present for being a good boy. I'm thinking of something
like
this: http://tinyurl.com/2nbjqy

But, I don't see anything there about '3 stage smart charger'.

A true 3 stage smart charger automatically follows an ideal charge profile
for a battery.
The first stage is a "Bulk" charge mode and the voltage is in excess of 14.5
volts. Once the battery starts building it's capacity, the charger switches
to an "Absorption" mode were the voltage is dropped to below a lead acid
boil over rate (14.4 volts). After an extended cycle in this mode the
charger switches to a "Float mode whereby it will automatically maintain the
full charge.

Some smart chargers also have an automatic "De sulfate" mode whereby if it
senses that the battery is not taking a charge due to the plates being
sulfated, it cranks the voltage up to 15 or 16 volts for a period of time,
attempting to "burn off" the sulfate from the plates. It then retries the
bulk charge mode and if the battery now responds, it continues with the
stages.

The little smart "Maintainers" also operate in different ways. Some simply
maintain a voltage below the boil over threshold. Others cycle off every
once in a while, allowing the battery to naturally discharge, then kick back
on to charge it back up.

Eisboch