POTEK 15A Smart Car Battery Charger

First off - be clear - this is a plug-in shop battery charger, not some sort of battery pack "jump pack." I was surprised when I saw a review panning this unit because they misunderstood what they were buying.I was skeptical when I first opened the box given how lightweight this charger is. However I put it through it's paces with three group 27 batteries, one being a deep cycle battery, and I am sold!You definitely need to keep the manual handy as there are more than a few options and supported battery types. Once you fire it up it does it's thing.It is noisier than the heavy old fashioned chargers but it is not loud. It is surely due to the required fan to keep the more modern components from overheating vs the large, heavy, old school transformers. If nothing else you know when it's working :-)The charger has an evaluation cycle it runs through before it goes back to work on the battery. This is a major plus over the battery chargers that will either just cook your battery or the automatic chargers that don't give you a measure of the health of the battery.This is definitely a great buy for anyone needing a charger, especially someone with a boat and/or a camper to keep their their batteries charged and healthy!

I have a few vehicles that I don't drive very often, so I need to keep a trickle charger on them to prevent the batteries from going dead. I ordered this one as I have never used a "Smart charger" and wanted to see if it works better or more efficiently. First off, the body is plastic rather than metal like my other chargers, so I don't think that this one could handle any type of drop. However, it does work fine for maintaining or topping off my batteries when they need a boost. The LCD screen is kind of messy and difficult to read, I feel that it could have a simpler layout. The included directions are not very clear either. An instructional video would have been nice for something like this. There is a "repair mode" however I'm not sure about the science behind this function. I did have a battery that would allow my lights to turn on, so it was not completely dead, however it wouldn't start the vehicle. I tried the repair mode twice and it did nothing. Maybe this battery was too far gone, however as I said, it did have some life in it. Overall I find that this is an OK charger, however I'm a little disappointed in the smart features and overall construction.

My issue is the manufacturer of this charger used 16 awg gauge wire on the clamp wires to charge at 15 amps, well hello the wire heats up during charging. They need to use 12 awg gauge wiring minimum for battery clamp wiring at 15 amps to charge effectively. Wrong gauge wire on this dc charger causes power loss and heat during charging at 10 to 15 ampsThe built in cooling fan is garbage, it makes a loud weird shrill like a destroyed bearing sound. Needs to be properly lubed or better quality fan. On a brand new charger, Unacceptable.This charger takes 4 minutes to do its checks and balances before charging. Last part in manual discusses this, but with no real detail or explanation on why it pauses for 4 minutes before it starts charging. I thought it was broken, but apparently it wont charge until 4 full minutes after you press the charge button, it reads CHE on display for 4 minutes.However if you press a button or change amp current you will have to wait another 4 minutes before it starts charging again, everytime. This does not remember your battery or settings, a dumb charger for the price. I have no clue what it is doing for 4 minutes, is the charger reading the newspaper ???The amp output is accurate and it will charge at your choice of amp output up to 15 amps. But again the clamp wiring gets pretty warm or hot during charging at 15 amps, the wiring is under sized.Also the cable clamps are the cheapest clamps ever made, came pre broken with plastic covers popped off. They are not suppose to pop off. Potek please fix this.Besides all of that nonsense, the electronics seem to all work well.At the end of the charge, its also good that it checks your battery to see if it is full, it will read after 4 minutes Full. If not it will top it off.For the sale of half off, its worth the price, but not when its off sale at full price, you decide.Manufacturer needs to speed up the start time on the charging software. And change your clamp cables to 12 awg wire obviously. And use better clamps that don't fall apart.Other than these things, its a descent working charger.

TLDR; Good charger for maintaining and possibly repairing 12 & 24 volt car batteries.I appreciate that this charger has settings for multiple different kinds of car batteries, and it even provides data on the specific voltages it targets for each kind. There is a repair function that supposedly tries to do some unknown things to try to repair a failed/failing battery. I don’t have a failed battery to test with, and I don’t have experience with repairing failed batteries to be able to evaluate further.The only thing I miss on the display is a reading on the charging amperage output. It only displays voltage.I haven’t tried out the Power Supply mode, but this could come in handy for certain situations and projects.

This charger handles both my car and motorcycle batteries without any fuss. It's compact, seems well-made, and the different charging modes are a helpful feature. I'm glad I picked this one up!