Hobby charger/multi chemistry/multi voltage charger recommendations?

Hi all, I want to charge my car battery from time to time.

Car doesn’t get driven much, I can park it on the drive for a few hours or overnight, but it’s a small driveway so it’s not feasible to leave it there permanently connected to a trickle charger.

Having looked at the price of dedicated lead acid chargers (£/$75+!) I think it would make sense to get a hobby charger that can do lead acid, in addition to other various batteries…

Does anyone have any suggestions for chargers I should be looking at, in the region of $75?

Thanks in advance!

Edit to add: looks like most of these max out at 50,000mah (50Ah). My battery is 65ah, so probably have to suck up the cost of a real charger…

If you have to “CHARGE” it, as in damn near dead, you will wait for a …long…time with a hobby charger to do the job. Same with a lot of dedicated Pb trickle chargers. You have to read the specs of the ones you are interested in. Some seem more targeted to small batteries like motorcycles, and lawn equipment.

OTOH, if you only want it for occasional topping off, assuming the battery is not a complete wreck already (old age, often neglected, high self discharge), it will do fine.
I’ve got one, done that, and it was OK. My unit maxes out at 2aH. For simplicity I got a dedicated PB trickle charger so I don’t have to yank the hobby charger out of it’s basement use slot, haul it to the car + cords, program it for Pb, then reverse the whole process.

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Are you on RC forums with same username? I’m pretty sure I read some posts about the IMAX b6 or skyrc units from you!

Yah it’s a top-up, the dedicated Pb chargers (noco, ctek) I’m looking at are 5A charge current, which I’m pretty sure things like the SkyRC B6 can do.

Don’t mind the car in the way of the front door overnight or one day but it’s a pain in the ass getting past for the postman and impossible to get my bicycle past it, so a trickle charger is out.

DIY’D a solar solution with a c. 30W panel, but the alarm and dash cam drain is greater than the power harvested in winter.

Current battery is knackered, so I’ll get a new one, just want a solution to ensure it lasts a reasonable time!

Yes, I am. I have a Trunigy Accucell-6 and Max80W. Both work, with the AC-6 being more accurate, and the 80W a bit more power.

I have a 2015 Prius with original battery, only gets driven for longer distances, so tends to sit 1-2 weeks. One morning it was dead, couldn’t even open the doors without the physical emergency key. Battery is semi-proprietary (expensive), in the trunk, buried (PITA), so I was hoping for a simple solution. Based on some discussion in this forum and follow-up research I also got an ADPOW 7-Stage Smart Charger. Supposed to fix sulphated/old batteries. Didn’t think it would work, but was willing to take a chance on the experiment. It’s a fine trickle charger, and it does not fix an old worn out battery. OTOH, I’ve kept it going by topping it once a week for 5 months now. So, as a trickle chargers I’m good with it.
It also works fine on our all electrical 2014 LEAF, which has a known poor algorithm for maintaining the 12v battery. I top it once a month just to be “sure”. That 12v died last year and was replaced.
I have a stock 6A charger that I can use in an emergency, which now is almost never.
I also have a Li jump charger that rides in the Prius now…just to be sure.

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I have 7 or more Hobby Chargers – I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe any of them do Lead Acid

Just get a charger for Lead Acid — If it’s not dead it won’t take long on a smaller charger 3 amp or more

My Accucel-6 does lead acid batteries and I’ve used it on a number of car batteries.

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I actually have one of those-- Don’t hardly use it though— I have some dedicated Lead Acid chargers
But I will check this out— Thanks

Wow I’m such a Dummy at times – Seems all my chargers do PB charging (Lead Acid )

The one I have close to your price range and is one of my favorite
ISDT Q8 MAX

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Messy menu. Changing to Pb is not straightforward. I have to thrash around every time. LiFe charging is worse, at least for me.
Don’t know if they all use the same general menu, but my 2 Trunigys do.
That might be some part of the reason I decided to get a Pb trickle charger, even though they do work. In some ways I actually trust them more. You can SEE what’s going on via the LCD screen during charging. The trickle charger is just blinking lights. Same reason I prefer my LCD screen Ni/Li chargers over my blinking light ones.

It’s been awhile since I used my Accucel-6 on a lead battery but I don’t remember it being that difficult to use. Certainly no harder than charging li-ion batteries. Readings during charging also didn’t strike me as being anything odd.

Perhaps there were changes to the programming? I can’t recall when I bought but it but it was a long long time ago.

Thanks for input all, I can see how hobby chargers could get complicated to program, I share the car with my partner so ease of use is important.

I guess with all these hobby chargers remember last used mode, or you can set a shortcut to a program? I’d hate to have to go searching through a menu each time…

The dedicated Pb charger option is lindeed ooking like the better option at the moment…

The ones I have, all four (including the Accucell 6), stay on the last mode that you used and keep settings for the next time you use them. Still, you need to click through them. But it is under 15 seconds to get them charging. Maybe three presses and “enter” to start.

All in all, a dedicated 12 volt auto type charger would be the best. If you get a name brand with the desulfate cycle feature , I think there is value to that. Especially if the car is not used regularly and only for short periods.

I have a battery minder unit and an Xtreme Charge one. I don’t think the latter is made any more. The new version of the battery minder is something like $180. So neither fits what you want. But I swear by them. There is a cheaper Batteryminder model that is only 2 AMP (just fine if you have time)

I swear I have gotten an extra couple of years plus out of a few car batteries by using them regularly. There are some cheap ones on Amazon. But they ARE cheap ~$30. So no clue about how long they might work…or how well. Reviews are mixed.
https://www.amazon.com/YONHAN-Fully-Automatic-Maintainer-Temperature-Compensation/dp/B097D397M6/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=12+volt+charger+desulphate&qid=1680908203&sr=8-9

What are likely better ones start closer to $70 and up.

https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-GENIUS5-Fully-Automatic-Temperature-Compensation/dp/B07W8KJH44/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=12+volt+charger+desulphate&qid=1680908355&sr=8-6

I recommend a dedicated car battery charger. None of my hobby chargers, even the $350 one, does a good job with lead acid batteries. They error out if the battery voltage is too low, which is to say they completely fail to charge a dead battery. They also can’t do proper tending / trickle charge.

I have a Schumacher brand 6V/12V lead acid charger and it works great.

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Is the car in sunlight for a good part of the day?
If so, a simple solar cell in the window will keep it topped off.
I used to have a jeep that sat for months.
I hooked a 12v (15v in full sun) 12w (?) directly to the car system. No charge controller needed.
Not enough current to cook things. And at night there was, obviously, no charging going on.
This kept the battery happy for years. Never had to use a real charger on it again.
Before the solar thingy, I had to charge every few weeks or the battery would get unhappy.
All the Best,
Jeff

Yah, the street is pretty sunny.

Currently have a c.30W panel on the dash and cheap solar charge controller. Contraption plugged into OBDII port. Over winter (UK), the panel doesn’t generate enough power to keep the battery charged for longer periods of time.

Might also be inefficient charge controller and/or causing some drain on the battery.

I’ve seen a low wattage controller advertised for $/£50 which claims to have extremely low parasitic drain and zero standby (night) drain. Might be worth a go.

Yeah, that would be a problem. In my part of Texas, we get a cloud every now and then.
Maybe the low drain controller would help.
But like I said, I didn’t use a charge controller. Just went right from the solar panel in the window to the battery.
All the Best,
Jeff