Decent, cheap, automatic 2-stage charger
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the charging portion of my inverter setup has bit the dust. It said it was floating at 12.65v (a bit of a stretch I thought, but 12.65v is the right voltage for a completely charged battery), then let it keep dropping to 12.45v. Pressed random buttons, finally got the charge light to go red, but never raised it above 12.45v. So, I'm looking for a good, cheap, and automatic 2-stage charger. What I mean by automatic is I want one with switches, not buttons. I want to set a switch for voltage, another for max amps, and when I plug it in it'll automatically start bulk charging or floating, depending on the voltage it sees from the batteries. I don't want to have to go out every time there's a power outage or what-not, and repeatedly press buttons to select the options I need. Hope that makes some sense.
Trust me, I've looked for this charger. It only makes sense that one exists. All I can find are really dumb chargers that will start charging as soon as they're plugged up (don't believe it when they say it can be left on all the time, unless you like seeing 14v on the monitor and the associated problems), or really smart ones that you plug in, then press button A three times to select the amps, then button B twice to select the volts, and button C D and E for who knows what). I want a cheap dumb charger that's smart, or a cheap smart charger that's dumb. I briefly considered replacing the inverter/converter, but then I looked at prices.
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