Motorcycle & ATV

Bought the 7500A model to charge my grampa’s car that hasn’t been driven since the beginning of the year and wow. At first, the 1st charge stopped after 3-4 hours with the digital display flashing all 888888’s. I unplugged the machine then left for the day came back the next day around noon and the completely dead battery that wouldn’t crank or click the solenoid start after a few gas pedal pumps and cranking. The car then cranked and started another 3 more times for the afternoon’s car positioning in and out the garage. I later decided after ready to go home to leave the charger connected and in maintain mode til the next day which has yet to come. Anyhow this charger is really compact and handy around the house instead of wheeling out a full sized charger and not being able to hide the damn thing if you wanna leave it outside for an extended amount of time. It can be easily hidden under the car too. Can’t think of any really negative comments other than the battery clamps could be bigger and the cables could be longer.
Rating: 5 / 5

I bought one of these to charge the batteries of 2 vehicles that had been sitting for 7 months while I was away. I figured that with the ability to crank an engine for 5 seconds, I could probably get a vehicle started or at least charge the battery. The first attempt was on my car with a completely dead battery–no voltage at all. The charger wouldn’t even recognize that it was connected to the battery–probably a result of a safety “feature” which may need to sense voltage to know it is connected to a battery. Since it didn’t sense it was connected to a battery, it would not apply a charge or provide any cranking power.

Next I tried it on the battery of my truck which had a little voltage left, but not enough to start the engine. The 5 second starting power of the charger would not turn the engine over. It did, however, charge the battery overnight and the truck started right up the next morning. I then used the truck to jumpstart the car with the completely dead battery and allowed the car to run for about a half hour. This gave the battery enough voltage so that the charger could then recognize it was connected and supply a charge to the battery. After about 6 hours, the car battery was fully charged and a test indicated that the battery was not faulty.

After all this, I returned the charger to Amazon and bought a Sears premium one that had better specs for about the same price and was told it WOULD start a completely dead battery. Had some similiar looking control panel items to the Schumacher charger so may be same manufacturer. Haven’t had a chance to try on completely dead battery.

If you buy the Schumacher SC-8000A, don’t expect to charge a completely dead battery or crank anything other than a very small engine.

Shipment packing from Amazon was poor–it allowed the heavy charger to bang around in the box. When I turned the charger upside down, parts inside moved around–not a good sign.
Rating: 2 / 5