Battery charger recommendations?

[SS4Real]

My 30 year old Sears Craftsman battery charger finally died. 10 amp unit with manual and fully automatic modes. I'm looking to replace it with a high quality new one that includes automatic mode. What is a good one for home garage use?

Anybody heard of these guys made is the USA?

http://www.usabatterychargers.com/Portable_Chargers.htm

[Keith Tedford]

There are probably other good ones, but I use C Tek charger/maintainers on our vehicles when stored. One vehicle had the lights left on and the battery was run down to the point that the dome light didn't even come on. I hooked up one of these units just to see what would happen. The next day the truck started right up and ran fine, so they will charge as well as maintain a battery. Our Corvette has been stored since last October and it fired up today like it had been running five minutes before. They work for us and are not all that expensive if you get them on sale.

[budnate]

the Ctek is pretty nice, I have 7002, pretty slick unit.

[tom406]

If you use Optima gel cell batteries, I'd recommend getting one of their units. They will sometimes become unchargable by regular chargers but the Optima chargers can often bring them back. A friend with a large collection picked one up and brought a couple of long dormant gel batteries up to snuff. Not cheap but batteries aren't too cheap anymore either.

http://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us/products/charger/?gclid=CKSrw6uUgb4CFQlafgodZHYAEg