Battery Chargers

[dtbrown]

I am upgrading my stereo and battery this winter. My question is this, I have upgraded to the optima blue tops, what is the best battery charger/maintainer for the optimas?

[AirNautique211]

RE: Battery Chargers

SNwanabe did some research on this exact topic and can send you a picture of the one you want.

[Proud2BeCC]

RE: Battery Chargers

Here is what I've found to be a nice trickle charger. You can find it here.

[ryanandrews]

RE: Battery Chargers

any will work...find one that "maintains" or "floating"

[M3Fan]

RE: Battery Chargers

I have one from Ace Hardware called the Battery Companion. 1.5 amp automatically monitoring trickle charger. Only charges when the battery needs it. It came with a nice little pigtail I could keep on the battery so I could conveniently just plug it into the pigtail when the boat sat in the garage.

[roadkingpuck]

Battery Tender works well and is inexpensive.

[Christopher-W.-Becker]

All,

Anyone know a volkswagon mechanic. Seems the new VWs have a large current draw when sitting. As a result VW ships their cars with solar panels to maintain the battery while sitting on the lots. The panel plugs into the power point. You could put several on a Nautique. Not sure of what the current output is on a sunny day.

So check with a VW mechanic and see what you can get.

[efox]

^^ HMMM. Hadn't heard that before? My VW has been sitting in the drive for more than a week without running. Suppose I ought to check it?

[2WIN]

I use Battery Tender Juniors on all my vehicles. I usually just disconnect the negative side of the battery on the boat however for winter storage. This year I am thinking of getting a couple of these and hooking them up. They are amazingly easy and constantly watch the battery and charge accordingly. $30.00 at batteries plus. Get one...

[AirNautique211]

In high school I had this gold VW Super Bettle. I could barely keep it running - points were always needing adjusted and water would get in the distributor every time it rained - but the thing always had a good battery in the winter. The battery was located under the back seat and must have been enough out of the weather to avoid not starting. Anyway, one year for Football Home Coming we had this big parade. Some friends and I decided to all pile in my Bug to ride from the school to the float construction location on the parade route. We were running late and there were 8 people piled in that thing. People were gathered along street waiting for the parade to start and cops were directing traffic - the whole bit. After pulling into a major intersection, someone said "I smell smoke". About 30 yards later we stopped the car in the middle of the intersection, everyone crawled out of the car, and I pulled the back seat bottom out of the car and threw in the street - SMOKING and FLAMING! It seems that a large girl that was in the back seat (something that had not happened up to that point) shorted out the battery terminals by smashing the seat springs down against both battery posts. The straw lining in the seat caught fire due to not having a little plastic cover over the positive terminal.

efox - I think your battery is probably okay, just don't get a fat chick in the back seat without a cover on your terminal.


Ha,Ha,Ha!

[NautiqueJeff]

Heh, yeah, that has happened in my VW Beetle too. I now have a rubber mat over the battery!

[surroundsound64]

In high school I had this gold VW Super Bettle. I could barely keep it running - points were always needing adjusted and water would get in the distributor every time it rained - but the thing always had a good battery in the winter. The battery was located under the back seat and must have been enough out of the weather to avoid not starting. Anyway, one year for Football Home Coming we had this big parade. Some friends and I decided to all pile in my Bug to ride from the school to the float construction location on the parade route. We were running late and there were 8 people piled in that thing. People were gathered along street waiting for the parade to start and cops were directing traffic - the whole bit. After pulling into a major intersection, someone said "I smell smoke". About 30 yards later we stopped the car in the middle of the intersection, everyone crawled out of the car, and I pulled the back seat bottom out of the car and threw in the street - SMOKING and FLAMING! It seems that a large girl that was in the back seat (something that had not happened up to that point) shorted out the battery terminals by smashing the seat springs down against both battery posts. The straw lining in the seat caught fire due to not having a little plastic cover over the positive terminal.

efox - I think your battery is probably okay, just don't get a fat chick in the back seat without a cover on your terminal.


Ha,Ha,Ha!

ha! That's hilarious!!!

I had a friend in HS with a superbeetle, 1962. He was always having trouble with the ignition system. I don't even know how many times he called me to come help him reset his gap. Then, once, he tried to rebuild his carb. He went about it by taking it all apart and throwing all the parts in a box. :shock: Then when he couldn't figure out how to get it back together he called me. I was like... uh... I didn't see you take it apart, and I've never messed with a VW carb. Luckily a VW carb is basically an upscale lawnmower carb, so it didn't take more than a few hrs.
hehe.

[ag4ever]

I saw those battery chargers on the VWs about a year ago. All the cars still had the plastic shrink wrap on them, and had a solar panel pluged into the cigarrette lighter and laying on the dash. Guess I know why now.

[AirNautique211]

Bling - the funniest thing I have read on this site was the thread "you know you are addicted,...". One guy said he knew he was addicted when he caught himself peeing double-ups.

Now that's funny!!

I can not remember who it was - was it you?

[ryanandrews]

air211..should have ahd the bumper sticker that reads"no fat chicks, bumper may scrape"