You should use no more than a 5 amp fuse. Fuse is safer no doubt...
trickle charge qwest!
- Thread starter jalnjr
- Start date
The cheap ($7) Harbor Freight units are terrible from a human factors perspective, but technically they do the right thing electrically if your objective is to keep the battery healthy when the car is not in use for a month or more. I.e., they are a float charger (good for storage), not a trickle charger (bad for lead-acid battery for a long term connection). They are not intended to be a battery charger to bring a near-dead battery back to full charge - unless you want to wait a few weeks or months. (I have a regular battery charger for that purpose)
From a human factors perspective, although they are small they are a two-piece kluge with clip leads to connect to the battery. The red light on the unit is a curious indicator. It comes on when the unit is plugged into the ac power, or it comes on when the unit is connected to the battery. So what I do is connect the clip leads, make sure the light is on, then connect it to the ac power. Occasionally, I momentarily unplug it from the ac during winter storage to make sure I haven't knocked off the clip leads while working on or around the car. (Of course if I installed a connector such as HotRod is doing, that would make things simpler
.)
From a pragmatic perspective, my battery is 8 years old, quite strong, and is off the road typically for 3 to 4 months each winter. So the $7 Harbor Freight kluge handled my intended task.
From a human factors perspective, although they are small they are a two-piece kluge with clip leads to connect to the battery. The red light on the unit is a curious indicator. It comes on when the unit is plugged into the ac power, or it comes on when the unit is connected to the battery. So what I do is connect the clip leads, make sure the light is on, then connect it to the ac power. Occasionally, I momentarily unplug it from the ac during winter storage to make sure I haven't knocked off the clip leads while working on or around the car. (Of course if I installed a connector such as HotRod is doing, that would make things simpler
.)From a pragmatic perspective, my battery is 8 years old, quite strong, and is off the road typically for 3 to 4 months each winter. So the $7 Harbor Freight kluge handled my intended task.
Sorry to bump an old thread, but just purchased a battery tender and was going to hard wire a connection to the battery. It looks like most people are putting the ring connectors on both of the battery terminals and also purchasing a SAE extender rather than creating your own as long as it has a fuse. When you do connect the tender is there any issue with placing the unit on the ground (concrete garage floor) or should you place it up off the floor on something? I'm sure my situation is similar to others in that there is no nearby receptacle so I'm guessing most people are utilizing an extension cord with no issues to connect the AC power.
Any other new ideas or suggestions?
Any other new ideas or suggestions?
TucAZNSX,
I have mine on an extension cord, on the garage floor in front of the rear tire, with pigtail (short cord that connects/disconnects to/from the tender) permanently wired to the fuse box in the engine bay (red wire to bolt holding jumping block in fuse box, black to bolt on throttle body).
Easy to connect/disconnect for me compared to something near the battery (hard to reach way back there). I snake the tender-end of the cable from underneath (instead of going over the paint through the engine cover). To make that easy I have the end of the cable from the tender in a loose knot to make a loop in it. I drop a mini-carabiner on the end of a small rope down past the transmission, hook to that loop, pull up, and plug into pigtail.
I have mine on an extension cord, on the garage floor in front of the rear tire, with pigtail (short cord that connects/disconnects to/from the tender) permanently wired to the fuse box in the engine bay (red wire to bolt holding jumping block in fuse box, black to bolt on throttle body).
Easy to connect/disconnect for me compared to something near the battery (hard to reach way back there). I snake the tender-end of the cable from underneath (instead of going over the paint through the engine cover). To make that easy I have the end of the cable from the tender in a loose knot to make a loop in it. I drop a mini-carabiner on the end of a small rope down past the transmission, hook to that loop, pull up, and plug into pigtail.
I have a small schumacher charger I purchased for this, after useing it over the winter months, my battery was not good.I was very dissapointed in this so called trickle charger maintainer not up to my specs.
I was at a local shop here, and the guy there knows his stuff.
He told me if I want to end my problems to use the Xtremecharger and stands by it. He had all his new in store batteries hooked to these and said he has never had a warranty issue with a battery and the city vehicles fleet and large oil companies buy many from him.(contract) no issues.He is not a salesman but a reputable builder for starters,alternators, electrical, and battery shop called amperage technologies.
He tests amps and cold cranking amps CCA on the battery and a lot more.I use a optima battery and went through 2 in 2 years, on my 3rd now.Not fun at the price they cost.He showed me a charger and said most chargers are total junk.I have to agree from over the years.
He laughed when I told him I have 3 chargers and 2 of them are motomaster canadian tire chargers.He said they sell basic stuff like hardware and have no technology in chargers, which I would be to believe the same for black n decker and other companies, just knock offs of others technology.I am not saying they will not work, but I am saying how good do they work.
He showed me some convinceing proof and also I should mention this is used widely in the military and has patents, and has actually been tested in studies, other chargers do not use true pulse technology, although they will claim they do.
My battery was supposed to be I believe 750 CCA, its a yellow optima deep cycle, well with this thing on his charger for a few months the new batteries he had were all at 1050+ CCA, yes it actually boosted the battery to much higher capability then a new battery.He showed me on his expensive testers.
I have brought back many many completely dead batteries that were garbage sitting around waiting for proper disposal ,no other chargers on them would hold a charge because theu do not desulfate, and my friends are always asking me to charge thier seadoo, boat, car,truck etc for them too cause they have all seen I no longer have battery issues.
This charger is small, compact and simple to use, plug n play, no settings.
Its fully automatic and no need to worry about over charging.
It is true pulse technology and the main thing to this charger is it actually de-sulfates a battery.The batteries have plates inside and can get lots of corrosion and sulfates they call it on the plates, its like a build up of battery corrosion inside the battery and really affects the battery performance after a few years.
My schumacher charger sits on the shelf it was a 1.5 amp maintainer that simply did not do its job for me, after the battery sat for 4 months it showed on the charger green light full but the car would only turn over a few cycles and it was done.
Its called the XtremeCharger from pulse tech
You can buy it on ebay, some auto stores, and from the internet of course.
The cost is usually between $75-$100 and it does not matter if its the Marine(blue) motorcycle(yellow) car/truck(red) or lawnmower(green) I did my homework on it a year ago and they told me that they were all the same inside just the color is different. I paid $69.99 for mine + shipping from SPC Tools on ebay.
I can say when I store my car this thing rocks, it is actually making my battery better then new, as other chargers actually can hurt the battery more then its doing any good.Read the faqs in the links for the explanations.
Also I have a small solar charger made from the same pulse technology for my boat called the Solargizer, its a deep cycle battery in the boat and the stereo and accessories drain it somewhat, so I bought it same time as I bought the Xtremecharger and it works excellent too.Its solar powered so I just leave it exposed in the sun and its always charging and desulfating my battery and I always have tons of juice to fire it up.
Now I am very happy with this charger and I thought I would tell you all my 2 cents worth on many hours of charger research.No more dead optima, and I will guarantee it has more CCA after the winter storage, then before I stored it driving daily.
Here is a link ,very good read, so you can see the info I am referring to, also I have no affiliation with anyone, its just personal preference and many dead batteries in years.
Xtreme Pulse tech charger
I purchased both the Xtreme charger for the car and the solargizer solar charger for marine use on ebay from SPC tools vendor, they were great to deal with and very fast shipping,
links:
http://www.xtremechargers.com/pages/faq
Here is a video too: http://www.youtube.com/xtremecharge
http://www.xtremechargers.com
http://www.oil-tech.com/xtreme-charge-maintenance-charger.htm
http://www.xtremecharge.com/stage_battery
here is the solar powered one I got for marine on a boat 2 watt one, if anyone is storing theirs in the cold months too.
I only paid $30.00US on ebay so do your searching for a better deal then this link, only listed it for technical specs
Solargizer pulse tech: http://www.magnalight.com/pc-1642-1...battery-pulser-combination-unit--2-watts.aspx
Look for yourself, if you have battery problems or want yours to last. I found this to be the best solution for me, as I have lots of batteries and now have not bought one in over 2 years since I found this, which paid for the charger many times over.
Also its very easy to store cause its tiny and comes with cable type clamp and lug eyeholes for the battery to hook up to a car permanety.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be informative to the community as it has helped me many times.
No more battery problems in the NSX.
Good luck.
I was at a local shop here, and the guy there knows his stuff.
He told me if I want to end my problems to use the Xtremecharger and stands by it. He had all his new in store batteries hooked to these and said he has never had a warranty issue with a battery and the city vehicles fleet and large oil companies buy many from him.(contract) no issues.He is not a salesman but a reputable builder for starters,alternators, electrical, and battery shop called amperage technologies.
He tests amps and cold cranking amps CCA on the battery and a lot more.I use a optima battery and went through 2 in 2 years, on my 3rd now.Not fun at the price they cost.He showed me a charger and said most chargers are total junk.I have to agree from over the years.
He laughed when I told him I have 3 chargers and 2 of them are motomaster canadian tire chargers.He said they sell basic stuff like hardware and have no technology in chargers, which I would be to believe the same for black n decker and other companies, just knock offs of others technology.I am not saying they will not work, but I am saying how good do they work.
He showed me some convinceing proof and also I should mention this is used widely in the military and has patents, and has actually been tested in studies, other chargers do not use true pulse technology, although they will claim they do.
My battery was supposed to be I believe 750 CCA, its a yellow optima deep cycle, well with this thing on his charger for a few months the new batteries he had were all at 1050+ CCA, yes it actually boosted the battery to much higher capability then a new battery.He showed me on his expensive testers.
I have brought back many many completely dead batteries that were garbage sitting around waiting for proper disposal ,no other chargers on them would hold a charge because theu do not desulfate, and my friends are always asking me to charge thier seadoo, boat, car,truck etc for them too cause they have all seen I no longer have battery issues.
This charger is small, compact and simple to use, plug n play, no settings.
Its fully automatic and no need to worry about over charging.
It is true pulse technology and the main thing to this charger is it actually de-sulfates a battery.The batteries have plates inside and can get lots of corrosion and sulfates they call it on the plates, its like a build up of battery corrosion inside the battery and really affects the battery performance after a few years.
My schumacher charger sits on the shelf it was a 1.5 amp maintainer that simply did not do its job for me, after the battery sat for 4 months it showed on the charger green light full but the car would only turn over a few cycles and it was done.
Its called the XtremeCharger from pulse tech
You can buy it on ebay, some auto stores, and from the internet of course.
The cost is usually between $75-$100 and it does not matter if its the Marine(blue) motorcycle(yellow) car/truck(red) or lawnmower(green) I did my homework on it a year ago and they told me that they were all the same inside just the color is different. I paid $69.99 for mine + shipping from SPC Tools on ebay.
I can say when I store my car this thing rocks, it is actually making my battery better then new, as other chargers actually can hurt the battery more then its doing any good.Read the faqs in the links for the explanations.
Also I have a small solar charger made from the same pulse technology for my boat called the Solargizer, its a deep cycle battery in the boat and the stereo and accessories drain it somewhat, so I bought it same time as I bought the Xtremecharger and it works excellent too.Its solar powered so I just leave it exposed in the sun and its always charging and desulfating my battery and I always have tons of juice to fire it up.
Now I am very happy with this charger and I thought I would tell you all my 2 cents worth on many hours of charger research.No more dead optima, and I will guarantee it has more CCA after the winter storage, then before I stored it driving daily.
Here is a link ,very good read, so you can see the info I am referring to, also I have no affiliation with anyone, its just personal preference and many dead batteries in years.
Xtreme Pulse tech charger
I purchased both the Xtreme charger for the car and the solargizer solar charger for marine use on ebay from SPC tools vendor, they were great to deal with and very fast shipping,
links:
http://www.xtremechargers.com/pages/faq
Here is a video too: http://www.youtube.com/xtremecharge
http://www.xtremechargers.com
http://www.oil-tech.com/xtreme-charge-maintenance-charger.htm
http://www.xtremecharge.com/stage_battery
here is the solar powered one I got for marine on a boat 2 watt one, if anyone is storing theirs in the cold months too.
I only paid $30.00US on ebay so do your searching for a better deal then this link, only listed it for technical specs
Solargizer pulse tech: http://www.magnalight.com/pc-1642-1...battery-pulser-combination-unit--2-watts.aspx
Look for yourself, if you have battery problems or want yours to last. I found this to be the best solution for me, as I have lots of batteries and now have not bought one in over 2 years since I found this, which paid for the charger many times over.
Also its very easy to store cause its tiny and comes with cable type clamp and lug eyeholes for the battery to hook up to a car permanety.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be informative to the community as it has helped me many times.
No more battery problems in the NSX.
Good luck.
Last edited:
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