Schumacher SC-1200A SpeedCharge 12/8/2 Amp Charger/Maintainer/Starter/Tester

• 12 Amp fast charge to monitor battery condition and prevent battery damage
• 8 Amp medium charge to self-adjust charge rate and keep the battery in peak condition
• 2 amp slow charge to charge small and maintain large batteries
• 50 Amp clamps for top and side-mounted battery posts
• Electronic push button controls switches for selection of display mode, charge rate or battery type and retractable handle for easy portability and storage

Forgetting to remove the negative connector before storing my vehicle for the winter; the internal sytems and alarm drained the battery, and of course it was sulfated. This unit worked like a charm. The battery was down to 8 volts/15%. The SC-1200a properly began to charge, then desulfate, and slowly was able to get the battery back to 98% before I removed it to start the car. This took approximately 17 hours (700 CCA Battery), which isn't bad for a dead/sulfated battery using a charger costing less than $50. The plus is you can use it to maintain your battery on a vehicle you do not drive much. Keeping your battery charged above 98% can greatly extend the life. How long it will the charger last running 24/7? ...I do not know yet. I have only had it maintaining the battery for 3 weeks, but still no problems. It does have a cooling fan which probably should be cleaned/vacuumed occaisionally; and I've never felt the unit being hot to touch. Not sure what problem the first reveiwer had, or if the unit he had was defective or dropped before he purchased it. For a $50 charger which maintains and also desulfates a battery, you cannot beat it.

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Stay far, far, far, away from this charger. I walked away from tested, good, low charge battery being charged on the 8amp setting connected to a 750CCA regular car battery and when I came back a couple hours later it was boiling and still trying to charge! I checked the charge voltage and it was at 16 volts (measured with a Fluke meter)! Bad, very bad, charger and not automatic or smart at all.

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This thing is NOISY. I got it to charge and maintain a battery for a back-up sump pump, was going to have it in the equipment room in the basement, so didn't think noise would be an issue for me (saw other reviewers mention it). Even so, it's too loud. There's loud humming noise from the fans which are always on, and when charging a high-pitch tone joins the mix. It also draws 10 watts at idle when not even charging. Totally not suitable for this purpose.

Otherwise it seemed to charged my 75 AH maintenance-free sealed deep cycle battery no problem, and went into battery maintain mode as expected.

Update: purchased Schumacher SEM-1562A 1.5 Amp Speed Charge Maintainer and much happier now. This unit doesn't have a fan and consumes only 2 watts while maintaining, and no transformer noises. Maybe I was just trying to use wrong product for my purpose. But I did want to have the ability to charge the battery faster than over several days...

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This is not what Amazon is thinks it is. They have confused the SC-12000A Schumacher Speedcharge Battery Charger, Model# SC-12000A

which is no longer available and substantially a more powerful unit.

This listing (this one above, SC-1200A) has the correct picture and model number, but the descriptive text in the title and details touts the specs of the the 12000, not the 1200.

I sent it back today once I saw that it was the less powerful charger. I missed the Gold Box this week because I saw this unit and thought it was the better unit. I went out today and bought locally as I can't wait for an alternate item to ship.

One of the earlier reviews (4-12-2007) alludes to this issue but it appears this was not Amazon's mistake. A model number with a single zero difference enables confusion all the way around.

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I was hoping to find the Schumacher model 7000A 2/20 Amp charger to review, but this 1200A is just a variation on the same thing. Looks identical too. After reading bad reviews of Schumacher and Vector it's clear these companies can't do anything right. Seems any product that has a microprocessor is programmed by the incompetent. Let me tell you about Schumacher speed chargers.

They won't charge batteries that don't already have a significant charge. If your battery drops below 10 to 11 volts, forget it. You'd have to have a manual battery charger as backup for when this won't charge, which eliminates the need for this thing in the first place. The explanation from the company is that the charger has to feed off the voltage in the battery, blah, blah. The purpose of a battery charger is to charge batteries, period. Then I was lied to by the tech and told if I hold down a certain combination of buttons when plugging the unit in, it would go into manual 2A mode (where the processor doesn't decide it won't charge your battery), but I sat there on the phone with him doing just as he said, and turns out no such feature exists. The manual doesn't mention anything like that either.

The charger is totally unpredictable. It almost always goes into desulfate mode. It has never completed a charge after coming out of desulfate mode, but ends in an error. Needs to be unplugged and plugged back in to start charging again to "completion". However completion doesn't seem to get the battery to 100% power, more like 80%, if that. Sometimes it won't charge at 20A and drops down to 2A. Don't know why. And according to the manual, desulfate mode can take up to 10 hours. So much for speed charge. Need to get into your car and go somewhere? Well you may need to wait until the next day.

It has a retain mode where the charger can sit there and monitor your battery and charge when needed. Figured I'd just leave the thing on my car almost permanently. But those who programmed the thing don't understand setting upper and lower thresholds. What it should do is charge up to the upper threshold, then when the battery drops below the lower, it charges to the upper again. I therefore expected it to turn on once a day or whatever. Instead it's turning on and off every several seconds, with the fan and relay clicking on and off. That's a good way to ware out the unit in no time.

It has a 70A engine start feature just incase you don't have enough juice to quite start your car, but if the battery is low enough where the charger won't charge it, the engine start feature won't work either.

My last car battery was probably only 1.5 years old before it wouldn't even take a charge. I'm beginning to suspect the damn charger might be responsible. When going into desulfate mode for instance, I see the voltage climb up to well over 16 volts. I don't know if that's good for the battery.

The simple act of charging a battery can be turned into a stressful nightmare with this crappy charger. Stay far away from Schumacher. It's clear they can't build a realiable charger, nor does it appear they've actually tried out their own products before dumping them onto the public.