My Schumaker charger is so old you'd need to do a carbon test to date it. It served honorably as the main charger for 10 years in my motorcycle shop and then went into private practice. I've come across quite a few dead chargers in the last 10 years and upon internal inspection I can tell you that in the case of most brands, including Schumaker, that the circuit boards are a lot thinner and of a much lower quality phenolic and not glass, even the wiring is of lower quality, and the soldering techniques (if I can call contemporary production soldering "technique") are of a poorer execution than in the past. Production QC today guarantees neither quality nor control. We are victims of the market screaming "cheaper" and we're getting exactly what (the majority of us) asked for so grin and bear it. Milacqua's favorite charger has it's share of complaints too. Storied names of the past on a box on the shelf today mean little to nothing cause the name is what is bought and paid for by some pacific rim conglomerate a la Zenith, Crosley, and such. Want a good charger? Cruise the thrift stores and flea markets and find an old, working Schumaker. clean it up and charge away and away and away and away... There is NO contemporary charger or maintainer that I would leave unattended plugged into an AC outlet, in my home or garage, connected to a battery for any period of time... except my old Schumaker. Out of sight... out of mind... out of luck sooner or later.

I bought a "Vector", "Power On Board" smart charger with 25 amp, 10 amp, 2 amp charging circuits, and 75 amp starting circuit. It is fully automatic and will recharge a car battery in 2 hours. It's circuitry varies the current and charges the battery slow or fast according to it type and size etc. It has modes for gel cell batteries, sealed lead acid batteries, agm batteries (absorbed glass amt), as well as wet cell batteries. It has an alternator check circuit and a battery voltmeter display. It turns itself off to. I really like mine. They are available at many places but the link below shows one at Sam's Club for $49.95. A good buy in my opinion. Here is a link that might be useful: Charger at Sam's Club

AKA (a.k.a.) Thanks, Pat Goss has a quaint writting style and doesn't give any technical detail, he/she does confirm the concern about using battery chargers on batteries connected to a new car's electrical system. Looks like good advice would be to disconnect the ground terminal before attaching a charger. This should be safe, albeit a bit of a bother. I was surprised to read a trickle charger can damage a battery if left on for long periods of time. This is contrary to what I've "heard". I don't know what the failure mechanism would be, clearly it would not be overheating of the plates. His recommendation to get an automatic shutoff charger is good and is in fact what I now have and may need to replace because it shuts off too early in the charge cycle.

The important item here is: What kind of batteries/cells are we discusing? Many camera use Ni-MH, size AA rechargeable batteries. This is a 1.2 V cell and can be used in any camera that accepts this type of battery. Its nominal voltage is 1.2 V and may get as high as 1.5 volts while recharging. Do not confuse with a lithium cell of the same size. The lithium cell is 3 volts. Although the words cell and battery are used interchangeable, in a strict sense they are not the same. A cell refers to a single cell and a battery is collection of cells. A 12 V, lead-acid car BATTERY is a collection of 6, 2 V CELLS connected in series. A 9 volt transistor radio BATTERY is a collection of 6, 1.5 V CELLS stacked in series inside the shell. However, I wouldn't belabor this point too much. If you go to a store, you'll find single cells under the battery sign.