STANLEYBC15BS Fully Automatic 15 Amp 12V Bench Battery Charger/Maintainer with 40A Engine Start, Alternator Check, Cable Clamps

My Optima battery requires a special charger. Very expensive. This is the inexpensive option and it works great. I needed it as I had a parasitic drain that I hadn't been able to trace down. (I've since found and resolved the issue.) This charger will charge a battery that has lost it's charge down to nearly four volts. I've used the repair option and although it is not always successful on an old battery it has repaired batteries that we use for the electric driveway gate (regular 12 volt car batteries) and the lawn tractor.The other day my sons truck refused to start. He thought it was the starter as there was just a click and the engine didn't even breath a sigh. He checked his battery with his cheap voltmeter and it said he had over 14 volts. (That can't be right. Kinda high.) Truck wouldn't start. I checked with my good voltmeter and got over 12 volts - more accurate. Truck still wouldn't start. Maybe it really is the starter. I pulled out this charger and checked the voltage. Just over 10 volts. Truck wouldn't start. Which was correct? I don't want it to be the starter. I left this charger hooked up to his battery and punched the 'engine start' button. Ninety seconds later I had him give it a shot and the truck fired up. I guess the charger was the most accurate volt reading. My son went and bought a new battery. (He had to get to work and didn't have time to repair the battery - with this charger.)This charger is and does what it claims. It will charge that AGM Optima. It will repair many worn out batteries, even though it does take a day or two, and that can save you a couple of hundred $$$. (Nothing can repair all worn out batteries.) The engine start capability works flawlessly. The alternator check function works great although it doesn't check the built in voltage regulator. Just a fact.Of course, this same charger is available under different brands with the only difference being the color and the name stamped on the front. Just find the best price and get it.July 2020 update: From five stars down to two.I only paid $60 for the 25 amp charger and I guess I got my monies worth. It worked great while it lasted, but after a year and a half it's useless now. I guess I was more fortunate than most people. When I check a batteries voltage the charger can't seem to make up its mind as I watch the value go up and down. No matter what voltage a battery has, when I try to charge then the charger immediately goes in to FLO mode. Engine start just goes into FLO mode too. Recondition is the only thing that seems to work anymore and I'm not sure about that.I did have another brand of 'smart' charger that I had to return immediately as it just didn't work. Now, no more Stanley's for me. I don't want a 'smart' charger at all anymore. Can't someone market a 'dumb' charger that will charge AGM batteries?

Update:It's been a few days since I wrote this review. The battery remains very strong, cranking the engine with no hesitation or apparent weakness. I even let it sit for a couple of days, and it started the car just fine.One thing I did was run a parasitic voltage draw diagnostic using my newly purchased Cen-Tech 11-Function Digital Multimeter. See my review here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/ROQ653VILI1JM/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0063M80Z6.I am happy to report that there was very little amperage being drawn from the battery with everything off, way below the 50ma recommended upper limit.Back to the battery: I believe the recondition mode with this Stanley battery charger is what did the trick. I highly recommend having this puppy among your garage tool collection.===========================================================================A less-that-two-year-old battery died on me because I was driving the vehicle only occasionally -- mostly just shuffling it around in the driveway. The longest time most recently without starting the car was about two weeks. That was the end of the battery.Since I figured that a fairly newish battery should still be recoverable I decided to see if I could bring it back to life. My search led me to this Stanley BC25BS battery charger.After some false starts, which I will explain momentarily, I finally have the FLO message showing. It remains to be seen if the battery is fully recovered, or only partially and still needing replacement. I'll followup here when I see which it will be.OK. At the first attempt hooking the cables to the battery and chassis and turning on the unit the needle pegged on 100%, and it indicated FLO. I knew that wasn't right because I was starting with a dead battery.Then I tried the Car Start mode. No help there.After reading reviews here and on YouTube I decided I needed to give the battery a little boost so it would have the 2 volt minimum required by this smart charger. I got the car started by jumping it from one of our other vehicles, and ran it for about an hour to give the battery a little bit of charge.Having done that, I hooked the charger up again and selected "Charge." It would charge for a minute or so, and then default to error, with no lines going from the cables icon to the battery icon. I tried it a few more times, but it would not keep charging.I then tried the "Battery Recondition" mode. Same thing. It would run for a minute or so and then quit.I finally tried really squeezing down and grinding the sharp teeth on the cable connections to the battery pos terminal and the spot where I had it grounded. As they say in France, "Voila!"I got a good recondition, and then a good charge and it is now in FLO mode. The lesson here is make darn sure that your connections are solid.I like this unit. I've got an old analog, dumb charger that's always scared me to use because it had no safety features whatsoever. I have a lot of confidence using this unit, and believe it will bring back to life and charge up any battery that is not so far gone nothing will help.

My first review of this charger was all positive, except for the fact that I saw no results from the battery repair feature and I wasn't trying to fix a dead battery. Last fishing season I had the boat out 7 times and the only use for the charger was to recharge the deep cycle batteries. This season it got me through about the same number of trips/uses and then stopped working. Screen lights up but nothing happens when you push the buttons. A couple times I got an alarm to sound when it was connected like what you would get if you attached to the wrong terminals. Right terminals connected, just bought the wrong charger to get much use from it. My advice is to go with something that is more durable. The first charger I ever owned I bought used for $15 and I used it incessantly for 18 years and then it got left out in the rain and ruined. Too bad those days are long gone.

Estaba probando su funcionamiento con varias baterías, funciona muy bien, es resistente y efectivo. Muy buen precio.

The product is of poor quantity and didn't lastnfor a month. It's switching on but doesn't charge the battery as intended.

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Very disappointed as it was a Christmas present. Two pin plug, came from the USA and was not compatible with 240v, would require a transformer.

Really, really like this charger. The display is easy to understand for anyone. I have a trickle charger but there is no display on it so rather hard to figure out 'where its at'. This one tells me if I've got it hooked up properly, when the battery is fully charged, etc. I work very close to home so in winter - which goes as low as -40c overnight here - its hard to keep the battery in my car fully charged. Plus I rarely go out on the weekends. Now if the temperature is going into the -20's for the weekend I pop this on my car and leave it on all weekend worry free since it goes to FLO mode once charged. One of the best purchases I have ever made.UPDATE Jan. 14, 2022. Almost 2 years later, charger is still working fine. It gets a lot of use in the winter for about a month or so when the temperature really drops. Still keeps my old Impala going. Touch wood that it keeps it up for a long time to come.Just a note, when its really really cold (tonight it is going to -37C here) don't leave it in the care, have it in the house. For the first time tonight it took it a minute or two to start up and I'm pretty sure it's just that it had been sitting in the back seat and was just so darn cold.