Dangit! I bought the wrong battery charger

Well guys and gals,
I just wasted $60 bucks. The battery charger I have been using for my e-tank was my dads. It's probably as old as some of the skillets I've been cleaning. I started to get concerned about leaving something that old running for long periods, so I bought a new one. This new Black & Decker has too many dang options. Charging, Reconditioning, some kind of alternator checker, etc. Anyway, I plugged it in, connected it, and the screen shows the "battery" has a full charge. Nothing was happening in the tank.

I sent an email to Black & Decker to ask them if there was an option on this charger which would tell the charger to send a constant charge. Here is the response I received:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Baccus Global. The BC15BD is a fully automatic battery charger, designed for charging only 12 Volt Wet lead-acid batteries, GEL or AGM - maintenance free, conventional automotive, marine deep cycle - that are usually used in cars, trucks, farm equipment, boats, RVs and SUVs, lawn mowers and garden tractors, motorcycles, personal Watercraft, snowmobile, ATVs, trucks and various commercial applications. It is not designed for charging dry cell batteries of any type.

This model is fully automatic and it will not over-charged a battery and it includes safety features such as polarity check & protection, which makes sure the terminals are properly connected in the even the cables get to be connected backwards. It also doubles its functions as a battery maintainer if it's left connected to the battery once charging cycle is completed.

When charging a battery, make sure all connections are secure. Check that the charger is properly connected to a live 120-volt AC outlet. If the battery to be charged has fallen below 2 volts, the battery cannot be recharged with these Chargers.

Our battery chargers only work from 120 VAC and for models with engine start, it needs to be connected to alternative current.

Has anybody else used a new Black & Decker? It has an option called "Reconditioning the Battery" which the manual says, "sends a series of electrical pulses to break up the crystalline form of lead sulfate and turn these chemicals into useful battery electrolytes." I wonder if this option would work?

ugh. Should I take this back to Home Depot and try a less fancy model?

See the section on electrolysis on this site about automatic battery chargers. It's getting harder and harder to find manual chargers now, I've found, at least locally. I had a spare 12V ATV battery laying around, so I got a $20 harbor freight auto charger and now use it in my electro tank in parallel with the battery and it's running along nice and content.

Thanks Jared. The Die Hard charger pictured in that section looks just like my Dad's, only about 40 years newer. I wish I had read about that work around a few week's ago. I had an old battery in my garage I could have used ... but I finally got rid of it recently.

I'm going to take this one back and get a manual charger. Never knew there was a difference! Live and learn.

Good luck finding one. They are generally more expensive if you can find one. A nice one though will allow you to control current much easier, which many people like. I've never found it necessary to fuss with too much.

Have you considered keeping and he out for yard/garage/estate sales junk shops or your area's version of uncle Henry's buy sell swap magazine (I think it's called). I happened across a "silver bullet industrial charger for a couple bucks at a yard sale about 20 years ago.

Good idea, Romunda. I took the one I had back to Home Depot. They didn't have a manual. Neither did Advanced Auto, NAPA, or Target. All said they could order one. I can do that myself! Ha!

I found some on amazon made by Schumaker, they're about $45 bucks.

I stopped at an Ace Hardware near my house (small, old school-type hardware store) and they had a DieHard Manual Charger! Sweet!!

By the way, I'm wondering if I overtaxed my dad's old charger. I had it set on the 12V setting, not the trickle charge setting. I figured if a little juice was good, more would be better. (Patience is not my strong suit.) does that hurt anything? Should I stick with the trickle charge? (The 2 amps setting versus 10 amps on the DieHard).

I re-read the section on electrolysis and, for a second, I thought I might have killed my dad's old charger when I cleaned my tank and refilled it. (Thinking I had put too much washing soda in it), but I think I'm ok. I put 1/3 in a five gallon bucket. Siri says 1/3 cup is 5.33 tablespoons. So I'm ok, right?