Charging 12v 7 amp battery question

[Fish]

so i have a regular automatic battery charger im pretty sure it does 12 volts, can i use that or does it have to be specific to charge sonar battery?

dont want to screw up my battery so just asking , tried doing research but not quite finding the answer im looking for.

[FISH11]

Any car battery charger will work but set it to 12v if it has a selector. Importantly, set the charge rate if selectable to 2amps or trickle whatever setting it might have. Should be fully charged in 4 hours or less.

[Fish]

perfect , thanks ...thats exactly what i needed to know!

[alanw]

It's my opinion you should use a proper small battery charger, preferably a smart charger. A car battery charger puts out way too many amps and can overcharge/destroy your battery. Max charge amps for a battery is around 1/10 of it's AH rating, so a 12ah battery should be charged at 1.2-1.5 amps using a regulated charger. Also, the SLA batteries we normally use require a slightly different charging sceme than normal car batteries. Google/Bing SLA battery charging

[YTHunter]

Ya, I think Alan's right. Here's the one I bought from Amazon and am very happy with.

http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender...attery+charger

[alanw]

Also, I would suggest that if you do decide to purchase a charger, get one capable of charging 12v and 6v batteries, so you don't have to buy another charger if you run a 6v live well. I use a Genius G1100, plenty of others around.

[Fish Taco]

I use a CTEK US 800 12V Battery Charger for my 12v 10 Amp battery. (The one shown here is the larger Multi-US 7002 model) It's one of the better 'smart chargers' out there and takes the battery through like 7 steps to insure the longest life from the battery... you can keep it on the charge indefinitely and it will not overcharge your battery. It has a 'snowflake' charge setting also for AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries too, I use that on my 22-NF's (55 Ahr) batteries that I use to power my BassYaks motor.

[alanw]

The Noko Genius chargers are also one of the better multi-step chargers. And also the SLA batteries that we use are AGM, so I use the AGM charge setting for them.