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.

[JeffB]

You can pick up 12v chargers at wal mart that have different amp settings. I've been using my 12v on 10amp on my 12v/7amp battery for 4yrs now and it last all day. I also use it on 10amp for my 12v/12amp battery

[StinkyMatt]

I got an old car battery charger with selectable 2, 5 and 10 amp setting. Works just fine in a ny setting.


I did hear that I should probably use the 2 amp setting....

4 years no problems.

[RockyRaab]

I have a smart charger for the rare times when a vehicle battery goes down. But I bought a trickle charger ($5 at Harbor Freight) for my kayak and ice-fishing batteries. I can hook it up and leave it for overnight - or several days. Never a problem.

Over winter, I hook my kayak battery up to it once a month for a night or two just to keep it topped up.

[FISH11]

Always store the battery fully charged. most small chargers will stop charging when the battery if fully charged. The small home chargers you can buy for car, motorcycle, ect. batteries have electronics that protect the battery from over charging. It's just important to adjust the setting if there are any to 2 amps or less or a trickle setting if that's what it has. I agree if not using for several months just connected once a month to keep it charged, that will make the battery last for many years.

[Iceman]

my understanding is that using the 1/10th rule will maximize the life of the battery. The 2 amp setting on car battery chargers will work as long as it is "auto and not manual" the latter is very unsafe, I have seen quite a few bulging batteries caused by this. If you want to extend the life of the battery use the lower rate, we sell 1/2 amp and 1 amp smart chargers, meaning they know when full and switch to a pulse maintenance cycle like in a float charger.

[Big T]

I use the little Shumacher Smart motorcycle battery charger. It's completely automatic and "senses" the batterys requirements for charging. It knows if you've hooked it up wrong and then sets the charge at the appropriate level. It doesn't charge fast at all and is simply a "maintainer" but my 9ah is fully charged in about 7-8hrs from almost dead.

It must be doing something right because I've charged that battery hundreds of times and it still has the same capacity and isn't bulged out.

It's tiny too. Just a little bit bigger than the battery itself.

[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.