Schumacher Electric 3A Car Battery Charger and Maintainer, 3-in-1 Solution, for 12V Power Sport, Automotive, and Marine Batteries, SP1297

I've bought three of these they work great good product

Good quality and has auto sensing features that charge and then maintain battery.

I'm a retired auto tech and have lots of experience with battery chargers. Just got this today to replace the Die Hard model # 71239 which is made by Schumacher and is identical to this SP1297 with the exception of this one being red and the Die Hard being black. Nice digital readout banner, walks you through hooking it up and getting it charging. Reads out the charge rate and once fully charged, the unit goes into automatic float mode and the unit's green indicator light slowly pulses on/off to indicate it's in "maintain mode" I had the Die Hard model for several years (bought it from Sears) and used it on a classic car that was mostly garaged. I gave the Die Hard charger to my daughter for use on a new Generator's battery to keep it fresh. I tried the NOCO genius 1 as a replacement but was not impressed and returned it. This Schumacher comes with accessory hookups ( Alligator clips, Hoop type attachments for permanent installations and a cigarette lighter style plug in adapter) It's great for light use and maintaining batteries. If you need to recharge a dead battery, this will do the job albeit slowly. At $40 this charger is a steal! I have another heavier duty charger (Stanley brand/also made by Schumacher) that is more powerful with more features. Schumacher makes the majority of battery chargers which are sold under different brand names. No surprise there as most electronics are rebranded with different colors and labels. I hope this review helps in making a decision regarding this charger.

This product works like you'd expect. Simple and reliable. The only issue I have had is that it is designed to be used on an actual battery so the positive and negative clamps separate about 15". In newer cars that hide the battery away under a seat somewhere and have a positive terminal in the engine compartment, this can be a problem. I was not able to clamp the positive to the positive terminal and reach either the negative terminal or the frame with the negative (black) clamp. I ended up taking up the floor in my sprinter and accessed the battery directly. Then it worked fine.

In the World of Charger Maintainer's this is the Cat's Meow. I wanted a 3amp charger so I could use it on the Lawn Mower as well as the Truck and Tractor Battery. Also I didn't need a 6V Charger so I chose this one because it can charge lead Acid Flooded, AGM, Gel, and 12V Lithium Ion Batterie's. This Charger Show's the Current Batterie's State of Charge in %, and then proceed's to charge it, while showing in Real Time the % of Batterie's State of Charge! When the Battery is at 100%, the Charger will stop chargeing and Automatically go to Auto Maintain and Display that message. I use this on my 650cca AGM Truck Battery, 840cca Lead Acid Tractor Battery, & 250cca AGM Lawn Tractor Battery. Schumacher Customer Tech's will tell you that it can't be used on Large Batterie's but they don't know their Product's. I guess they don't know much about their Battery Charger's because they don't use them; the Charger's are Made in China, and I'm guessing the Engineer's that make their charger's are Chinese as well, and probly cause the Chinese now Own Schumacher and are just letting the American Customer Service keep their job's as a Good Will gesture. The woman answering the phone didn't even know how to navigate their own Website! The Tech's said that this charger wouldn't charge my 840cca or 640cca batterie's. I've been useing their 1.5Amp charger maintainer's on my 650cca, 840cca, and 250cca Batterie's for over 20 year's, so I knew that the 3Amp charger would charge fine and now I have one that will display the Batterie's State of Charge. This Charger Maintainer is the Best that I know of. The Slower that a Battery is Charged the Better it is for the Life of the Battery***UPDATE 2/7/23***My old 3A SP1297 is still functioning good. According to the Senior Tech @ Schumacher the New 3A SP1297 DOES NOT HAVE THE DESULFATEING MODE now. Also the 6A SP1298 DOES NOT HAVE THE DESULFATEING MODE. Just for added information in case you wanted a charger that has the ability to desulfate a battery. However according to the Senior Tech @ Schumacher the 3A SP1356 DOES HAVE THE ABILITY TO DESULFATE A BATTERY.***UPDATE 1/3/24***Led Display was starting to miss part of the Display so I decided to get a New one after 3 year's. Stumbled upon the FRO1542 4A Farm and Ranch Charger/Maintainer. According to the FRO 1542 User Manual @ SchumacherElectric.com (Farm and Ranch Charger FRO1542),,,It does everything that the SP1297 will do and a Lot More includeing Charging and Maintaining Small Lawn Mower Batterie's as well as Larger Batterie's UP TO 1000 CCA'S!!! AND IT IS ONLY 20 $'S ON AMAZON!!! Ordered 2 and seem's to work better on my 800 cca battery than the SP1297!!! I just ordered 2 More before they discontinue them. Schumacher doesn't seem to know much about them or Believe the User Manual ~ GO Figure. Schumacher seem's to only recommend a much more expensive charger. For 20 $'s these FRO1542 Charger's Should be Flying off the Shelf's. Don't be a Day Late and A Dollar Short, Get'm While They Are Available..

This is a good charger/maintainer. I have several cars with maintainers on each. this has been in use now for quite a while if the vehicle is not going to be driven for a while. I recommend it.

I like this charger, I use it on my John Deere Z425 mower, it charges at a good rate and goes into maintain mode automatically after the battery is fully charged. One thing I will note is it’s not fully automatic, after you connect the battery first and then plug in the charger to the 110v outlet ( as the user manual states ) you must select the battery type, then it will automatically charge and maintain your battery, if you encounter a power interruption it must be reset to enter charge/maintain function again. It’s not a deal breaker for me, the charger performs very well. I recommend this charger!Update: 3/12/2022,I noticed today after an 8 hour power failure I went out to check the charger and it was in maintain mode, so my previous statement wasn’t entirely correct about it not being fully automatic, apparently after a period of time it will go into the proper mode. Also I will add it has performed excellent so far and I am very satisfied with it. I would still recommend it!