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Excellent battery “tender”

I own 3 of these chargers. One for each of my vehicles that sits in the garage for several months of the year, undriven (2 motorcycles and 1 car). One of my motorcycles has a standard lead-acid battery, one has the newer AGM or gel-cell battery, and my car has an Optima yellow top.

This charger is exactly what it says it is…..a 2 amp float charger. It will recharge a weak motorcycle battery but its NOT made to recharge a dead car battery. It WILL in a pinch (if you left the dome light on overnight), but it takes a long time and the simple truth is that a dead car battery needs to be charged quickly to avoid the damage you already did by allowing it to go dead in the first place.

This charger is actually switchable between 1 or 2 amps. The 1 amp setting is good for motorcycles, the 2 amp setting is good for cars or for charging a weak motorcycle battery. Note: unlike other cheap chargers, this one forces the 1 or 2 amps of current full time until the battery reaches a fully charged state (as measured by voltage). Many other “trickle” chargers simply hold the battery at 14 volts and slowly cook it all winter long (slowly ruining the battery). This Vector VEC080 charger will not cook a healthy battery. As a matter of fact, it spends most of the winter ‘off’ just monitoring the battery.

The Vector VEC080 is a 2 stage charger. When you first connect it, it verifies the battery voltage. If its not a dead dead battery (shorted), the charger will engage the charging current. It holds a fixed current, while the voltage on the battery slowly rises. Once the voltage rises to roughly 14.4 or 14.5 volts (I can’t remember which), the charger disengages the current and switches to ‘float’ mode. In float mode, the charger watches the battery voltage. A fully charged 12V lead-acid battery will sit between 13.6 and 13.65 volts. If the voltage on your battery drops below roughly 13.55 volts (representing about 90 to 95% charged), the charger re-engages the selected charging current.

Once charged, a healthy lead-acid battery only looses about 5% of charge per week. So in reality, once this charger is connected, it will only switch on about once a week. In a car, it might switch on once a day because all the electronics in the car help drain the battery a little faster. If you have a VEC080 connected, and its constantly turning on and off every 30 minutes all day long for weeks on end, you either have a significant drain on your battery or the battery is going bad (dead/shorted cell). Its good to learn that now before you actually take it out of the garage and get stranded on the road
The VEC080 comes with a quick-disconnect harness so you can quickly connect to your motorcycle or car at the end of the day without directly accessing the battery or popping the hood. It also comes with standard battery clamps. This unit is also produced under the Black & Decker brand as model# BM2B but its made by Vector.

Update (2/6/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Vector VEC080 1.5Amp Hr Float Charger Misc. Feb 23, 2007, was written by Nicholas Thompson.

The average rating for this item is 3.7 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.