Samlex America(SEC1230A 30 Amp Smart Charger

Mounted it on my GMC motorhome to keep the two main batteries and one house battery charged when the GMC was not in use for protracted periods of time. The first charger lasted about two years before it burned out. And despite claims, over time, it would boil out enough water from the batteries that I had to check them at least monthly.Since I was all set up for this particular charger, I went ahead and bought a second Samlex after the first one failed. But this time I plugged the charger into a household timer so that the charger only runs about 1.5 hours a day. Turns out this is enough to keep good batteries up to snuff and they don't boil down noticeably even over a long winter. The second charger has been going for 3 years now and it is doing just fine.

The charger works perfectly. It has one ground (negative) terminal along with 3 positive terminals. The 3 stages (as I understand) will help prolong the life of a deep cycle battery. This charger has two dip switches that the user can adjust depending upon what type of battery is being charged.I have the unit permanently mounted near my battery bank. The cord is run a couple of feet over to the receptacle. It is a tad bit inconvenient to pull the cord when I want to shut it down but I can live with that. I may be showing my ignorance by saying that it should have an on off switch. But that is the only thing negative that I have to say.

I have used boat battery chargers on every big boat that I have owned. Some required very large systems, because they basically counted one(1)battery as a bank. I purchased this, not for my boat(I already have one on it), but for a back up to my solar charged 12 battery electric system(3 banks of 4 batteries).I rewired both the solar charging system and the existing backup system to integrate it with this charger. Because it is probable, that batteries may be in use, even at night, I disabled the "Boost" 2nd stage of the charger, so that it would not be overcharging any of the battery banks. When overcharging they gas and boil out the electrolyte. With manual chargers, you have to sit right on them and make sure that they are not boiling over. The 1st "Bulk' Charge rate will take them to 80%, and the way that I have set the charger(manual explains how)it will then go to the third stage, "Float." All done, automatically.Samlex makes great products and, 'they ain't cheap.' Amazon's vendor sells this cheaper than I have seen it, anywhere in this country. I was concerned that I might not be getting it when I was originally told that I would, but these good folks stepped up to the plate and got it to me exactly one day after it shipped. Incredible. This old, 'DIY Engineer' highly recommends both the Amazon partner and Samlex products.

No wonder my batteries gave me such trouble, I didn't have this unit. Made to sense your battery and maximize everything. A perfect design, AND implementation. Very well built. Has cooling fan, that is fairly quiet and only runs when needed, which is usually the first 10 minutes of charging. It also switches to adjust its pattern for different types of batteries: wet, gel, acm, etc. It also has a UPS mode where it will charge while the batteries are under load, which I have never had any luck with before. These folks make SUPER products. I also have their full sine wave inverter. A must for electronic equipment.

Great unit for my off grid solar set up.

My first one failed for no apparent reason after about a year. One day it simply wouldn't power up. Samlex doesn't repair their products, but they did sell me a refurbished one at somewhat of a discount. Its major drawbacks are that it doesn't allow you to adjust the voltage to match your battery (besides the two presets,) and although you can theoretically charge three batteries at once, it only has one negative terminal. If the pre-set voltages match your battery, it's probably fine, but otherwise look for something else. It also never delivers more than 10A, no matter the type of battery or its state of charge.

Works very well. No problems after 3 1/2 years of daily use charging a pair of Trojan T105RE batteries.

This charger is used to charge deep cycle batteries for my UHF amateur radio repeater.