Review: Schumacher SC-1200A battery charger

SC-1200A:

I've owned this charger for 5-10 years at this point, and it's saved my bacon (or rather, batteries), enough times that I figured I should plug it in a review.

First off, I've been fantastically happy with this since I bought it.

What makes it better than most chargers I've used in the past is that it follows the correct charging profile for lead-acid batteries (bulk, absorb, float), and by monitoring the charging current, it can kick into a "desulfation" mode or mode automatically.

Whenever I've found a fully discharged (and dead) battery, so long as the lead plates aren't damaged, I've been able to recover the battery by topping off the fluid, hooking up the charger, and letting it go to work.

For the Yuasa motorcycle batteries I have (VFRx2, HawkGT), it takes a good 6-12 hours at a 2amp charge rate to bring the batteries up from the sub-basement (I've seen it report 30% or less charge on the battery when starting off). For a larger battery (Nissan Pathfinder, Dodge Ram, Nissan 350Z) it's taken it closer to 24 hours (at an 8 or 12Amp rate).

I have had batteries that I couldn't save, but they were old, vs just heavily discharged.

I'm definitely glad I have this tool in my garage.