PRODUCTREVIEW
by Bruce W. Smith
A
half-dozen batteries sit
on a pallet on the shop
floor of Spears Autobody
& Repair headed for the recycler.
Spears' shop, located just a few
blocks from my Long Beach, Mississippi, office, does a lot of vehicle repairs and pickup upgrades
for local contractors.
All six of the batteries he'd
collected during the past month
were considered "dead" by the
normal standards because none
would take a charge – or the
shop's battery charger wouldn't
even acknowledge there was a
battery at the end of the battery
clamps.
That all changed when the
UPS driver strolled into my office
with a box in his hands. It was an
Optima 1200, a battery charger
I'd seen at last year's SEMA Show
in Las Vegas.
Weighing in at a mere 4.8
pounds, this toaster-sized electronic marvel is said to enhance
the performance of Optima's own
AGM batteries as well as recover
deeply-discharged flooded or
AGM batteries from other manufacturers.
While most shop battery
chargers can only charge
batteries that have 7-9 volts
remaining, Optima's Digital
1200 12V Performance Battery
Charger ($200) can read battery
voltage as low as 1.25 volts.
So it "sees" what would
otherwise be considered a dead
battery and tries to bring it back
to life.
It also automatically evaluates the battery when it's first
connected and shows the results
on the bright center screen that
resembles a retro dash gauge.
There's also has a soft-touch
button on the right control panel
that allows you to test the battery's pre-charge condition. Nice.
DEAD-ON
PERFECT
PUT TO THE TEST
Curious to see it in action, I put
Optima's 1200 to the test on the
batteries on the pallet as well as
on several vehicles that came
in to Spears' shop with battery
issues.
I even tried it out on zeroturn mower and ATV batteries. It
worked as advertised.
It's one of the easiest battery
chargers I've used. Plug it in,
connect the clamps to the battery posts and push the Battery
Pre-Charge Status button.
Once the battery analyzing is
done, which takes 1-2 minutes
on the batteries I tested, you
then select the type of battery
you are charging by pushing the
round gauge-like touch pad on
PROPICKUP DIGITAL
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5/8/13 8:16 AM
