Car charger: which one to choose

Recently had to run into a problem that made me buy a battery charger. I recently bought a new battery and could not even think that I would have to charge it, but by my ridiculous mistake I forgot to turn off the radio, and it worked (albeit without sound) for three days. Below I will tell you about my choice and why I stopped at a certain device.

Choosing a charger manufacturer for car batteries

Of the goods presented in local stores, the display cases were mainly represented by the following manufacturers:

1. Orion and Vympel, which are produced by LLC NPP Orion in St. Petersburg.
2. Oboronpribor ZU - manufactured by the city of Ryazan
3. Chinese devices of various brands

Regarding the Ryazan manufacturer, I read a lot of negativity on the forums, and in most cases, many came across fakes that, after the first recharging, failed. I did not tempt fate and decided to abandon this brand.

As for Chinese goods, I have nothing fundamentally against it, but unfortunately I have not seen any reviews about those that were in the store and I was also afraid to buy such a charger. Although, it is possible that they could serve for quite a long time and be of a sufficiently high quality.

As for Orion, there are also a lot of reviews on the network, among which there are both frank negative and rather positive aspects. Basically, people complained that after buying a memory device from Orion, they ran into an outright fake, since Ryazan was indicated there instead of the city of St. Petersburg. In order to protect yourself from counterfeiting, you can go to the Orion website and look at the distinctive features that the original should have.

Having carefully looked at the box and the device itself in the store, it turned out that it was original and they had no fake at all.

Choice of charger model for maximum current

So, I decided on the manufacturer and now I had to choose the right model. To choose the best option, you should pay attention to the fact that if you have a battery with a capacity of 60 Amp * h, then a current of 6 Amperes is required to charge it. You can take it with a large current, which I did - by buying a pre-start, which had a maximum current of 18 amperes.

That is, if you decide to quickly invigorate the battery, then you can load it with the maximum current for 5-20 minutes, after which it will be quite capable of starting the engine. Of course, it is better not to do such things often, as this can shorten the battery life. The best option would be automatic mode with a current ten times less than the battery capacity. Upon reaching a full charge, the device switches to the voltage maintenance mode, which compensates for the self-discharge.

How do I charge maintenance-free batteries?

If your battery does not have access to banks, that is, it is not possible to add liquid due to the absence of plugs, then it needs to be charged a little more carefully than usual. And in many user manuals it is written that such car batteries must be left for a longer time under a current twenty times less than the battery capacity. That is, at 60 Ampere * hour, it is necessary to set the current in the charger equal to 3 Amperes. In my example, it was the 55th, and it had to be driven somewhere around 2,7 Amperes until it was fully charged.

If we consider Orion PW 325, which I chose, then it is automatic, and upon reaching the required charge, it itself reduces the current and voltage to the battery terminals. The price of such an Orion PW 325 charger is about 1650 rubles, although I do not exclude that it may be cheaper in some other stores.