Out of curiosity: Why would anyone need 120-240 compatability? The only reason I can think of is a boat/vehicle that is going to be shipped around the world and needs to work with both voltage systems.
Anyone else know a good reason cause I am stumped!
Meh…Battery Tender is definitelty the best marketed brand. It’s the standard offering at any car parts/motorcycle store in the States.
But I’ve had several of my batteries baked by a faulty battery tender branded charger. Took me several batteries to realize that it was the charger that was killing my batteries.
The “car guys” I know (really…motorcycle guys & mechanics) swear by Optimate, and Pulse Tech X-treme lines of tenders/chargers. Both those folks came out with intelligent charging when Battery Tender was cranking out low budget dumb trickle chargers. This particular offering from BT does appear to have gotten on the bandwagon wrt having multiple charging profiles. But they are definitely not the leaders in the technology. They made their name by offering well-marketed inexpensive products. I ended up with an optimate, two years ago, and it hasn’t died yet.
Need? Probably not. Want? Yes. Not sure about this one, but most auto-detect or just directly handle the voltage without telling the device. And then you can reasonably not care or worry less about what outlet you’re plugging into.
I have a friend that has a bad habit of plugging into the wrong/incorrectly wired/labeled/code breaking outlet and frying his stuff. Usually was with PC power supplies though back in the day. I gave him a voltage detector for his birthday once as a joke.
Has not yet happened to me because I don’t just stick into any available outlet (cough), but at the same time, after seeing and hearing stories like from my friend there, any cell phone charger, battery charger, or the like I look for 120-240v compatibility if I can get it.
Plus, would sort of suck if you had a 120v charger, got into a place, and wanted to charge up, and they for some reason only had 208v or 240v.
I’ve heard some people say they look at the voltage and frequency range as a sign of quality too, though not sure if there’s any truth to that.
The only time I’ve ever had a 120/240v consideration is when I plugged things in a dumb (non-stepping) travel adapter internationally, w/o thinking about the country’s voltage standard. Most ac/dc converters are ok w/ that now. But that just means I’m not a particularly good candidate for this. For a motorcycle/car scenario, it’s definitely a rare situation to need the feature, unless, say, you’re bringing your wheelchair/mobility scooter with you to Asia.
But I imagine there are a few situations stateside where it could come in handy…on the off-chance that your most convenient outlet in your garage/shop happens to be a 240v drier hookup, or the bank of batteries you happen to be charging is a backup system for a 240v hunk of household equipment (say, a sump pump?). Then, it makes complete sense to wire up a 240v trickle charger, since you wouldn’t want to have to pull a separate 120v line just for the maintenance charger. I would imagine there are a bunch more industrial scenarios too, where 240v is the applicable standard.
Typically, though, I’ve seen more sophisticated charge controllers for those types of setups, but I suppose this is kind of a budget option.
Eh, good eye!
Although, from how I’m reading the sparse manual from on Deltran’s website (PDF File), it seems like it only outputs 5A if you are using their proprietary 3-wire connector. If you are using the standard 2-wire plug or going off the alligator clamps, you’re only going to get the 2.5A output.
From the PDF…
I have a Battery Tender Plus constantly hooked up to my Honda generator in my walk out basement. I installed the optional pigtail kit and it’s a simple hookup when I am ready to put my generator back to bed.