Battery Tender or BatteryMINDer

[DaveJ]

I'm planning on buying either the Battery Tender Plus (Deltran) or the BatteryMINDer (VDC Electronics). I searched this forum and most everyone seems to be using the Battery Tender. A few people have the BatteryMINDer and also seem to like it.

The BatteryMINDer has a cycle that supposed to reduce or elliminate sulfation. I don't know if that's just a gimmick. I've never heard of sulfation until I read about it on the VDC website. And I'm concerned about the charger's resonant pulse current during the condition cycle and what it might do to the car's electronics. I don't know if VDC instructs people to disconnect the battery from the car when using the battery conditioner mode.

Any comments plus or minus about these chargers? I need to maintain my Mercedes' battery during the winter months and also even during the summer when I don't drive it for 1-2 weeks.

Thanks for your comments.

[mbdoc]

Have used B tenders for years on race car battery & on boat batterys. They work quite well.

[donbryce]

I have 2 batteries to worry about. 1 is my 380SE battery that needs to be coddled November through April, and my streetrod battery that needs to be monitored and charge maintained all year (winter, same as 380 battery, rest of the time, while it sits in the car for weeks on end until I go for rodrun or a short drive)(there's a fault, I suspect in the rod's alternator, that drains it if not used within 2 weeks or so).
Anyway, I've used the Battery Tender Jr. for nearly 1 1/2 years now, and it really is a quality little product that works great. Since I've purchased one, my regular charger hardly leaves the shelf. http://batterytender.com/product_info.php?products_id=4
I'm not sure of this anti-sulfation stuff though, but it did catch my interest.

[DaveJ]

Thanks for the comments. After I posted the message on this forum I searched on Usenet and found many discussions on desulfation battery chargers. Although it's definitely not scientific proof, it seems that most people think these kind of desulfation chargers are snake oil. There doesn't seem to be any independent proof that these kinds of chargers are really beneficial. And the desulfation process seems to have many fine print caveats. Again, this is based on user comments on Usenet.

I'm going to stick with Battery Tender. Now I'm unsure if I want the Battery Tender Plus or the Jr.

Dave - I have a Battery Minder from VDC and have used it for two years. I have four batteries hooked up to it for the winter and it it works great! As for the desulphation snake oil - I no longer believe it to be snake oil. Last fall the 3 year old battery on my wife's VW diesel went bad. Four cranks and it was dead. Voltage on it was 11.80 volts. Charged it up and voltage hit 12.25 volts but same thing four cranks dead. Bought a new battery and all was well. Just for the heck of it, I took the old bad battery and hooked it up to the Battery Minder and put it in desulphation mode. Of course as you live life you forget things. I forgot that I had that battery hooked up for 5 months. So I checked the voltage on it 13.09 volts. Hey this thing has life!!I disconnected the Battery Minder and let the battery sit. Forgot about it again for 2 weeks. Checked the voltage on it 12.82 volts!! This battery is good again! It now is in my daughter's car and works just fine. I now am a firm believer in the Battery Minder. By the way - I also have the 6 volt version for my 1930 Chevy battery and that battery is still like new after sitting on this thing for 2 years. Hope this helps you decide.
Morris

[DaveJ]

moedip, thanks for your info on the Battery Minder. I've since purchased the Battery Tender Plus and it's working great.

I didn't see anything about sulfation on the Battery Tender Plus's web site page, but the product packaging mentions it. It reads "Our "BTP micro-chip technology applies the correck peak charge, then automatically maintains the battery a the perfect float voltage which virtually ellimates battery destroying sulfation".