On 20 Oct 2005 18:23:08 -0700, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:

I would be interested in hearing a recommendation for a charger for
lead acid batteries.

I am looking for a charger that gives an indication of charging status
(no idiot lights please), capability for flooded cells, sealed lead
acid and any other options you have found useful.

Also, what do you use to charge your lead acid batteries?

You don't say what AH rating your batteries are but for my pair of
deep-cycle flooded batteries in my RV I use a homebuilt three-stage
charger.

Most (all) of the commercially available crap uses switch-mode
conversion/regulation that generates gobs of EMI/RFI.

I built a 30A, three-stage analog charger. Not wanting to reinvent
the wheel, I used an Astron RS-35M power supply

http://www.astroncorp.com/linear.shtml

for the transformer/rectifier/filter/pass trasistors and an A-A
Engineering

http://www.a-aengineering.com/

"smart charger" board that I modified, for charge control. The board
uses the Unitrode (now TI) UC3906 IC

http://www.ti.com/sc/docs/psheets/ab...ps/slua115.htm

that is specifically designed for this.

Sorry, there are a couple of idiot lights, but the supply also has
honest to goodness meters too.