[AT] Battery Charger recommendations

[Greg Hass]

I have three battery charges, not because I'm rich but due to necessity. 
I first had a ten amp. but after using it once the neighbor borrowed it 
and had it a year before I got it back to charge the combine.  A week 
later he wanted to borrow it again and kept it for a few months until he 
burned it up by hooking it up backwards with sparks flying; I myself saw 
him do it a couple of times. Of course he never offered to pay for it. I 
decided I wanted one with boost; I ended up with a Dayton with 150 amp. 
boost. It has worked well for over 10 years but at the time I bought it 
I looked all over and could not find one of that size with automatic 
shutoff; I think maybe now some are available. I didn't like guessing if 
the battery was charged so I bought a ten amp. Solar brand ;not sun 
operated, charger for about $40 (ten years ago). It is automatic so if I 
have time I leave it on until it shuts off. If I'm in a hurry and want 
to get something started I use the big charger just to add some juice to 
get it started. Unfortunately, I think the 10 amp might be toast as the 
last couple of times it shuts off every 30 seconds and then restarts 
again. I guess I'll give it one more try. A couple of years ago John 
Deere had a 1 and a half amp charger-maintainer on sale for $40. I use 
that in the winter or when I might forget it for a couple of weeks. What 
I like about it is that it can charge a battery although slowly. It has 
a red light saying it is charging and a green light saying fully 
charged. I bought it because a couple of the cheap maintainers my 
brother bought have warnings to only use them on fully charged 
batteries. This may be the reason some of you are having bad luck with 
the cheap ones if a battery has to be brought up to charge ( mine you I 
said MAY be, there could be others reasons such as poorly built to start 
with). The 1 and a half amp charger has reverse hook up protection and  
will say if the battery can't be charged. Probably more than you wanted 
to know.
     Greg Hass