[mechman600]

I have been using my new accessory battery charger for a couple of weeks and I am proud to say that I can finally plug the car in and walk away.

My old accessory battery charger was a Schumacher SC-1200A. 12A/8A/2A. I had to turn it on manually every time I plugged in the car. Annoying. And it wouldn't quite keep up with the traction pack chargers, meaning that if I did too many short charges or didn't do a long float charge once in a while, my accessory battery would fall slowly behind after a few days.

If you are going to charge an accessory battery with its own charger instead of using a DC-DC convertor (like most sane people do!), the trick is to give it a charger that charges slightly quicker than the traction pack chargers.

So I tested the Schumacher. It turns out that the "2A" mode really outputs 1.3A. EEP. What a piece of junk. I tested my new $18.99 2A ATV/motorcycle maintainer (immediately after testing the Schumacher) and it outputs 2.3A. Much much better. This 2A maintainer does not require switching anything on, which is the real bonus and the main reason i bought this charger. Plus, once the battery is fully charged (14.4V) it switches to a float of 13.5V. Not even the Schumacher did that.

Needless to say my accessory battery has been much happier lately. I can tell by the tone of my vacuum pump and the normal speed of my windshield wipers.