This little charger works equally well when charging and maintaining both 6 and 12 volt automotive batteries. It's a good choice for maintaining batteries in cars which are driven only on special occasions. Schumacher SC-600A SpeedCharge High Frequency Battery Charger
I purchased the product from Walmart for about $30.00. I purchased it as a compliment to a more powerful but not automatic charger I already have. My main purpose is to keep boat batteries charged during the off season. After reading the instructions and hooking it up it went through the charging and stopping cycles as indicated in the user's manual. All of the indicator lights worked as stated in the manual. So far I have charged two batteries. I hooked them up in the evening, the indicator light showed they were at about 75% charge. By morning they were fully charged and the charging cycle had stopped. According to the user's manual once the charging stops it goes into a maintainance mode where it monitors the battery and when it falls below a pre-set charge, it begins a recharge cycle again. The automatic function is nice because you dont have to worry about over charging. The 6 ft power cord and 6 ft charging cables are convenient because I could charge my boat battery in the garage without having to use an extension chord. I have only charged two batteries but so far, so good.
It can charge both 6V and 12V batteries, with different amp selection. Different from some of the older style charger, this one will automatically shutoff when charge is full. So you can plugin, clamp on, turn on and walk away doing other things. Never worry about overcharge the battery.
It is light weight and great tool to have, if you have a lot of batteries around. We use it to charge and check the batteries for the large UPS power supplies in our office. Properly maintained battery can extend its life so much, worth many times the cost of this charger.
I tried to start my lawn tractor recently and found that the battery was very severely DEAD!!. I went online and purchased this Schumacher SC-600A speed charger. I hooked it up overnight and that battery was fully charged and quite able to start my tractor the next morning. Great performance, and very easy to use. Next, we're going to top off the car batteries before the really cold weather sets in.
This charger works perfectly. I have had other chargers over the years and have borrowed chargers from friends and family. The last one I used was from a neighbor and, although it said that the two batteries I tried were charged, they would not crank the car or lawn tractor at all. I put both batteries through a full charge with the Schumacher and both came up trumps. Both the car and lawn tractor fired up immediately. I returned the neighbors charger and have not looked back. It was well worth the price as I would have had to replace both batteries. Highly recommended.
I used this charger on 7 to 9 amp/hour batteries. At first it charged the batteries fine but I started to notice that when charging at 2 amps it wouldn't register as fully charged sometimes. It would stay to 4 bars but not go to the charged light even after a longer than normal time. I would change to 4 amps and then it would be fully charged. I worry that it may be overcharging some batteries.
I also noticed that it couldn't read some 6 volt rechargable lantern batteries (4.5 amp/hour). This is the main reason I bought this charger. I have a automated Schumacher 1.5 amp charger and thought well of the company, that is why I wanted to buy another Schumacher.
The charger seems to work fine on larger batteries automotive or motorcycle, so it is good for that.
I bought this battery charger based upon the Schumacher reputation. I've only used it twice so far, but very happy so far. The 3 ranges of current fit my needs well.
I also don't need to be concerned with overcharging since it's capable of switching to a trickle charge after the battery has reach the full charge state.
Schumacher's basic charger - 6V or 12V, 2A, 4A & 6A charge rate. Automatic charger that charges, then goes to maintenance mode. Their more expensive chargers have higher charge rates (10A & higher) and additional built-in metering like voltmeter to test state of charge, etc.
I am using it exclusive for my 2 cars in the winter. Went on vacation and returned 6 days later to find the car wouldn't start when the trunk lid (truck light) was left open. With regular below 32 degree weather in the winter in Wash DC, bought this to maintain the 2 car batteries. After jump starting my wife's car, decided to buy this to charge the battery and monitor battery condition (can't leave her stranded or home alone with a dead car battery).
Instructions were simple, but use caution anyway. Charger had approx 6 feet alligator clip cables to connect to battery and keep away from battery (acids, fumes, etc.). With negative-grounded car, attach red clip to positive battery terminal, then black clip to ground (charger must be unplugged from AC). Then plug into AC. Charger has "connection" indicator tyo show a battery is recognized. Then select 6V/12V, then select charge rate (2A or more). When charging, has "charge" indicator light and 3 lights (25%, 50%, 75%) to show progress. When fully charged, 3 progress lights go off and green "charged" indicator lights up and it goes into maitenance mode. Unplug the charger, then disconnect the 2 clips from the battery.
The unit has a five (5) year warranty; very few electrical/electronic devices now have a warranty beyond 1 year. Even the big appliances like washers, dryers, dish washers now come with just 1 year -- the manufacturer effectively increased the price by 10% which is about the repair rate for the 3rd to 5th years.
I bought the Schumacher SC-600A along with the Schumacher SE82-6 to see which one works better on my 12V batteries. So I tried both of them out this past weekend. The SE86-2 costs a little more and is completely manual. While the SE82-6 has a dial indicating the current charging/maintaining Amp, I found the SC-600A to be not only convenient but also worry free. I had to keep watch on the SE86-2 every 4 hours while it was charging and saw the Amp needle move down as the battery charged to full. On the SC-600A I just left it overnight (at the suggestion of other reviewers) and didn't worry about it. When I woke up the next morning the Green light was on to indicate the charge was complete.
The SC-600A also has a nice feature in it where it will Desulfate your battery if you left it uncharged for too long (according to Schumacher's website and manual). None of my batteries were left uncharge to that state so the SC-600A did not kick in to that mode. One thing I wish the SC-600A has would be the digital or needle Amp readout to indicate either the percentage of battery charged or current Amps. I know the bigger brother model SC-1000A and SC-1200A both have the digital read out but I wasn't looking for a charger greater than 6 Amps since that's enought for most applications. But for the price, you can't beat the convenience of the SC-600A charger. - Chargers - Schumacher - Battery Charger - Automotive'
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