I think the various models with the name Battery Tender is okay from what I've seen and heard. Costco sells them, or has in the past. I've seen them widely sold and never heard anything bad.
For that matter, the Harbor Freight cheapo battery maintainer will do just fine in my experience. It's the overcharging that kills the batteries. The HF maintainers I've had have been trustworthy over years and never takes voltage higher than 13.1. It's only the fact they cost so little that makes it scary.
These VRLA batteries (valve regulated lead acid) are all sealed and can't deal with overcharging. Nor can plain old flooded cell batteries like Gills. With the sealed batteries the overheating causes them to release electrolyte through their escape valves which degrades them while the plain old flooded cell gets electrolyte boiled away exposing the plates.
I was really suprised at the behavior of these common battery chargers/maintainers like Schumachers and others of equivalent type. The companies that make them certainly aren't stupid, yet they let those things get sold all over the place that put out 15+ volts continuously in maintainer mode. I was amazed to find that out. Why do they do that?
All I'm really saying here is if you're using a maintainer, put a voltmeter on it and make sure you know what it's doing, no matter what the brand.
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