BatteryMINDer 2012: 12 Volt-2 Amp Battery Charger, Battery Maintainer, and Battery Desulfator - Designed for Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, ATV, Boats, RV

I have a Corvette and live in snow country. That means putting the car away for the winter. Fortunately, I have a place to store the car. The down side is it isn't heated. Batteries will freeze if they are allowed to discharge. To prevent that, I need to either drive the Corvette regularly, bring the battery inside, or put it on a charger.I started my career in electronics designing battery charging systems for hand held devices. I found that the "Ideal" charger is complicated: different features are needed to quickly charge a battery versus maintain it over the winter. Until recently, you needed a different charger for quick recovery versus long term storage. While not the end-all product, this charger is a great, full featured device that incorporates more of the ideal charger features.Battery chargers come in many types: Bulk Chargers, trickle chargers, and smart chargers like BatteryMINDer.Bulk chargers are designed to quickly recover from a "dead" battery. They tend to have little sophistication, just pouring out lots of energy quickly. This is fine for bringing up a partially discharged battery and getting the car started quickly. But such brutes may overcharge the battery if left on for extended periods. And, they may not have temperature compensation. The bottom line, they may ruin a battery if left connected for extended periods - like the four months I need to store my car.Trickle chargers try to tackle the storage problem. Prior generations of these chargers just used a low-current charger with a maximum voltage output. These "weak" chargers simply don't have the power to quickly recharge a battery, but are reasonable at keeping one "full" under some conditions. They are cheap and somewhat effective.Neither of these "Dumb" chargers deal with significant details of maintaining a battery's charge. The voltage of a fully charged battery varies with temperature - about 12.5mv per degree. That doesn't sound like much, but over the 100 degree temperature variation that is possible with the car in storage, this is 1.25 volts - a significant voltage difference. If the charger's set point is too low, the battery will discharge; if too high, the battery will get too much energy and will over-heat. Such heat kills batteries by boiling off the water in the battery fluid.Battery manufactures publish the "ideal" charge profiles for their products. Here is a typical charge profile: [ Google "lead acid battery charge profile"] This charging profile has four phases: bulk charge, absorption charge, float charge, and testing.The "Smart Chargers" such as BatteryMINDer, solve these problem with with a micro-controller. They sense the state of charge in the battery, the outside temperature, and adjust charging accordingly. The BatteryMINDer provides all of the charge phases listed above, and adds two more: a Qualification phase and a desulfidization phase.- Qualification / Soft Start Phase - this is to test for a very dead battery - The charger is current limited, in this case to just 1/2 Amp. It uses this phase to check for reversed connection of the battery leads, damaged batteries, etc. For a salvagable battery, this phase slowly brings the battery up to a voltage level where it can be charged more quickly without generating excessive, damaging heat.- Bulk Charge/Fast Charge - Here the unit puts out maximum current. The BatteryMINDer puts out 2A. This is far less than typical Bulk Chargers (up to 25 A), but will recharge a typical car battery in about 12 hours. This slower rate makes this charger a poor choice for the quick-fix where you find that you had left your lights on overnight and are late for work. Massive bulk chargers are a better choice here, but are more stressful on the battery.- Float Charge - This mode is where the magic happens in these smart chargers. The Float Mode provides a temperature compensated trickle charge to the battery. It senses the ambient air temperature - or with a low cost accessory - the temperature at the battery - to adjust the trickle voltage and current to the environment. Unlike simple trickle chargers, this mode pulses current on/off to achieve a complete charge. The tender stays in this mode for about 15-60 minutes, depending upon the brand.- Battery Test - This mode turns off the charge entirely for a few minutes and then looks at the voltage over time. It is natural for the voltage to drop slightly. Excessively rapid drops indicate internal issues with the battery. The BatteryMINDer provides an LED indication for a damaged battery. For a normal battery, the rate of voltage drop is fed back into the Float Charge mode to adjust the on/off time of the current pulse to assure that the battery gets only the charge it needs.The combination of temperature controlled float and battery testing makes this the perfect system for long term storage.I ended up buying a cigarette adapter for the system - about $6 more. This saves me the hassle of popping the hood. I just plug the adapter into the cigarette lighter adapter and plug in the BatteryMINDer. (Note: This only works on cars where the accessory/lighter socket is ON when the car is off. GM cars work this way).I have reviewed the datasheets and found this the "Ideal" charger for me. (I still have a bulk/starter charger for the lights-left-on, gotta-get-to-work situation).I will know next spring how well this worked, but I am confident.

Purchased in Jan23. Started using in April 2024 on a daily basis. Awesome maintenance charger. I use it to keep the battery on my truck in good condition since I don’t drive it that often. The battery was replaced in 2020, so now it’s going on 5 yrs of age, which pleases me. My truck normally eats a battery every three years. Wish I could hook one up to my car parked in the driveway every night because batteries cost a lot more these days and I think a device like this would make it last a whole lot longer.

This is a simple to use unit, that seems to work well. I have used it for several weeks now. It is too early to say how long a battery maintained by this unit will last over one that is not maintained. Of course, if I didn't have a problem with such a battery in the first place, I wouldn't have gone to the expense of getting one. We have one automobile that is driven infrequently and for which I have replaced a battery once a year for the past four or five years. I used to keep a charger on that battery, but I suspect that I was contributing to the problem of building up lead sulfate crystals (sulfated battery) by doing so.So on the advice of a reputable shop, I switched to this battery minder. Though that shop did not recommend a specific model or manufacturer, they did emphasize getting a "good one." After reading reviews, I chose this model. So far, so good.I really liked the fact that the unit came with temperature sensors for charge and cycle regulation, though this auto in question is garaged and doesn't see extreme temperatures in this climate.But most of all, I liked the extra cables provided so that one could use the big alligator clamps or hard wire the connections to the battery with the additional provided cabling. I hard wired it to the battery and just leave the pigtail sticking out so that the unit can be reconnected after the car is used and disconnected before use quickly and conveniently.I am seriously considering getting another unit for my garden tractor/lawn mower.Update November 6, 2022: On October 20, 2022, I discovered that the BatteryMiNDer 2012 had failed. I usually glance at the unit every morning when I walk out to get the paper. On that morning, I noticed all lights on the unit were off. I checked the power cable and found that no matter what or where it was plugged, the power light would not come on, and that the unit was inop as measured with my volt-ohm meter.The unit had been in service in my garage protected from the weather since it was first put into service on August 15, 2022. The unit works very well and with that I am pleased. I have never attempted to start the car with the unit attached, btw, so that was not the cause of the failure of the original unit. The unit failed after about 2 months in service.I called the company on their 800 number, spoke to a man named "Dave," who said that there may have been a power surge (I doubt it as nothing in my home or garage else was affected). He issued a RMA number and instructed me to return the unit at my expense.Since I still had the original packaging, I repacked the unit with all the cables and accessories and took it to the Post Office on Oct 21 (USPS $12.50 to Huntington, NY). It was received at VDC Electronics on Oct 24th. I received notice that the unit was inop (Surprise! Surprise!) and would be replaced without charge. A brand new unit was shipped to me on Oct 26th from their NJ warehouse. I received it Friday evening Oct 28 at 7PM by UPS.I put it immediately into service once again, taking care again to save the original packaging just in case. All in all, great customer service. No complaints.

works well on keeping the battery in a good charge condition

No more worries if the motorcycle is going to start after being plugged into this. It keeps the battery charged.