I was in Harbor Freight yesterday and picked up a '1.5W Solar Battery Maintainer' for $15 for my truck since it doesn't get driven much now that I have my CTS.
In reading the manual to make sure there were no AGM warnings, I found that it seems that in order to prevent damage to the batteries, you're supposed to use it with a charge controller. To top that, the charge controller that they sell says in the manual that when the green LED turns on indicating the battery is charged, you should disconnect it immediately. This makes it useless as a maintainer.
I did some looking and it seems that a LOT of the 'Solar Battery Maintainers' out there under various brands look EXACTLY like the harbor freight one. I did find two from Schumacher - the SP-200 and SP-400 - that do not look identical, and as such, MIGHT actually be different and have a real circuit for maintaining a float charge.
Does anyone have any experience with the Schumacher units, or have any recommendations for something decent but not super expensive?
In reading the manual to make sure there were no AGM warnings, I found that it seems that in order to prevent damage to the batteries, you're supposed to use it with a charge controller. To top that, the charge controller that they sell says in the manual that when the green LED turns on indicating the battery is charged, you should disconnect it immediately. This makes it useless as a maintainer.
I did some looking and it seems that a LOT of the 'Solar Battery Maintainers' out there under various brands look EXACTLY like the harbor freight one. I did find two from Schumacher - the SP-200 and SP-400 - that do not look identical, and as such, MIGHT actually be different and have a real circuit for maintaining a float charge.
Does anyone have any experience with the Schumacher units, or have any recommendations for something decent but not super expensive?
