small motorcycle charger

Looks the same as this one and Schumacher states that CT is an outlet for their products.

Wayne

 

Is that thing a trickle charger, or a fully automatic FLOAT charger?

There are plenty of trickle chargers out there, but they should *never* be left on 24x7 or you'll destroy the battery.

On the lawn tractor at my hobby farm, I leave the VDC Battery Minder plugged in from October - May, everything works fine

 

It is a float charger. It was designed to leave on your battery all winter.

 

I haven't verified that charger from Canadian Tire actually IS a float charger. First of all, clicking on the link you need a valid Canadian postal code. I used a Winnipeg one, R2V 4G6.

The product is #11-1544-4 , $49.99, and claims to be a 1.5 A trickle charger. Usually, a trickle charger is always on, a float charger will automatically ramp down under 50 mA to prevent overcharging the battery

I have to go grocery hunting soon. Will swing by our local Canukistan Tire and determine what they claim about this gadget. I'm pretty sure that CT also offers genuine float chargers, but they look a lot like the VDC Battery Minder I use, not like a regular small battery charger

The Schumacher I looked into claims to be a float charger as well

 

I quickly checked over the other Motormaster products at their online site. This model

Canadian Tire

Appears far more appropriate to long term use. It claims automatic float mode and desulfation mode

 

Sorry, the one I purchased is a float charger.

 

I swung by Canukistan Tire before groceries. They didn't have the listed charger in stock, the #11-1544-4 that costs $49.99, but the guy at the parts counter doubted it was a fully automatic float charger. He didn't recommend it for constant use

The link I provided to the "four stage" charger, the "CTEK Multi Use 3300," #11-1522-6 at $79.99, is recommended for constant use. It will automatically apply a float charge once the battery is topped off

I didn't see any Schumacher chargers while looking around CT. I have seen the large ones at Princess Auto, at least I did last fall

 

I emailed Schumacher the following:

To: [email protected]
Subject: SEM-1562A

I am from Canada and you state that Canadian Tire is an outlet for your products here. I am interested in the SEM-1562A Battery Maintainer.
The only product I can see listed at Canadian Tire is product #11-1544-4 that resembles your SEM-1562A. Is this the same item?


And got the following response:

11-1544-4 is the same as SE 1562A


Wayne

 

Odd. So the Canadian Tire model is *made* by Schumacher, but when I inquired at a local Canadian Tire, they claimed it's *not* a float charger, and steered me to the other model I noted

:mmph:

That's what I get for trusting the meth-mouth behind the counter



I need a drink ....

 

I bought the Schumacher charger for the Prius, but ended up using it on the BMW 528i when we went down the Florida for 2 months (I loaned the Prius to a friend who didn't save all the gas receipts and screwed up my nearly 3 years of mileage records).

When we got back, the BMW battery was fine, the charger was cool as a cucumber. I guess it did it's job.