Words and photos by Wayne Scraba
3 /8/05

It wasn’t that long ago that you’d need a specific battery charger for a specific task. Need to charge the 12-volt battery in your tow truck? Hook up the 12-volt charger. Need to charge the trick 16-volt batteries in a racecar? Hook up a special 16-volt charger. Need to maintain the battery in your golf cart? Hook up the trickle charger. Need to charge a special deep cycle battery? Hook up a dedicated deep cycle charger. In far too many cases, you’d have to literally babysit the batteries as they charged. Too much charge (and/or too fast) and you’d toast the battery. Forget the trickle charger was hooked up and the same thing might happen.

DEALING WITH TODAY’S ELECTRONICS…

Something else to consider is this: The battery is almost always an overlooked part of your racecar. With today’s sophisticated and equally sensitive on-board electronics the battery must maintain a full charge. If the electronic equipment does not have the recommended (available) power, your car will not run correctly (read that as “slow” and “inconsistent”). And with today’s big compression ratio race engines, if the battery isn’t up to full power, the car won’t even start. In the end, you can waste plenty of time trying to track down and troubleshoot a series of gremlins that really begin with the battery.

THE “SMART” CHARGER…

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Enter Moroso’s “smart” (as in intelligent) Power Charger. The Power Charger not only charges ordinary everyday 12-volt batteries but also will charge 16-volt racecar batteries. If that isn’t enough, you can charge any type of battery, including Gel Cell, Sealed, Lead Acid, Wet/Deep Cycle and “Reactor” batteries. This same charger is also a battery maintainer because it can be left to charge and then keep your battery at top working condition while your car; RV, boat or motorcycle is in storage.

The Power Charger will provide near full battery recovery in approximately 14 minutes, based on an average voltage drop. This thing is wicked fast--amazingly, we had a totally dead motorcycle battery up to full speed in less than an hour using this charger.

The Power Charger’s solid state LED indicators clearly show the current flow into the battery so you know if it is charging, or at 80% or “Ready”. The Moroso Power Charger has a list of features that pretty much will make all of the chargers in your garage obsolete. So far so good, but what’s with the “smart”? You’ll see in a minute.