I have recovered several "dead" batteries with the Viking charger. This is not a rapid process and takes much more time than one might think. I've had a few other "smart" chargers but they never recovered batteries like this! You need to give it enough time and stop basing results on charging a "good" battery. I threw my other "smart" chargers in the trash when I saw what the Viking could do!

I do not think anything was wrong with the first unit. The maintainer side of this unit is going to condition the battery which is why you were seeing the voltage moving around. Once the unit goes through the charging/conditioning mode it should go green into maintenance or give you a bad battery indication. Also a 4 amp charger is more of a trickle charger so it is going to take awhile. If you want a quick charge you need a 10 or 12 amp charger and then apply the conditioner/maintainer.

I bought one of these, I use it to maintain my motorcycle battery and car battery. I’ve had no issues. Did take hours for it to stop glowing red when charging my car.

One thing I noticed is that you didn't read the manual. It specifically say do not plug in the AC until ready meaning hooking up the battery first. Under Operation step 1 it again restates hook up battery first then plug in charger. When disconnecting charger unplug AC first then then battery. Don't know if that would change your outcome but it's worth a try. Also I read somewhere that Winter Mode will occur automatically when the temperature sensor in the charger indicates to the microprocessor that the ambient temperature is at or near freezing.

Thanks for sharing this info on this Battery Charger. My inlaw gave me his Craftsman Battery Charger in 1986 that finally went out. ..It had a simple meter plus the technology today wasn't even close to the generic Craftsman. Ill take a look at others probably a bit more for the price and reviews before committing. Thx Again for sharing!

It's only a 4 amp charger. I think it may be possible that the first charger simply needed more time on the battery. As the second charger already had a lead on the charge process from the first charger, it still appeared to take a few more hours. Sometimes you need to have more patience.

I would verify that the battery is reaching 14.5 volts with a digital meter, thereby checking the status of the battery.

13 minutes and you told me what about this unit? Wow thanks for the weather forecast

My battery took over 12 hours to charge fully

All that is happening is normal. Sometimes my Avalon needs 5 days to stabilize and stay green. Whenever the charger is in red it is conditioning battery.

LOL. I've had it work 14+ hours before it would stay green. That particular battery is 8 years old.

It has a fuse inside on its circuit board. The one I have did not work and the fuse was blown. I soldered a car 5 amp fuse underside of the board and it came alive.

I was having the same problem you were having, until my brother told me to unplug the battery then it worked fine..

I hate the coolest looking battery. Never seen a hellcat engine bay. Really digging it

Cool car

OMFG, you are obsessed with the temp of the battery charger. I got it. I got it. It's warm. It's warm.

If you're trying to charge the battery through 10 foot cables, maybe that is why it doesn't function properly? I have a Charger as well. The battery is in the trunk. I doubt these battery charges are designed to do that.

Positive gets connected first then ground. This is the most basic point of car safety.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o59ziJWrlrHbmo0.html left a light on which drained my car agm battery down to 3v!! hooked up an old style battery charger to bring the voltage up to 10.5v then switched to the viking. after 30+ hours it finally turned green and showed 12.7v. during charging it had red lit screen, voltage & charge bars would reach 14.6v and blinking 5th bar and then drop down to 2 bars and 13v...it cycled like this several times. i pray that the viking repaired the deep discharge damage.

I'm no electrical or auto expert and am learning as I go along. From what I gather a car battery has 48 amp hour capacity so that if the electric flow is 1 amp per hour that it would take 48 hours to drain. 2 amp pull> 24 hrs. 6 amp, 8 hrs. etc. If that works in reverse, at 4 amps in, it would take 12 hrs. to charge from nothing. The 1st one may have been bad but didn't you say there was some drain which necessitated a trickle charger? It seems you have power going two 2 places. One to accessories & one to storage. Not knowing where things started or the pull, I wonder if the 1st one was bad. But I'm no expert on all this. I'm using one for the 1st time now & wanted to know kind of what to expect which your video did. Thanks!

I wonder if the heat had anything to do with your initial results. Once the weather cooled off, you got the results you were looking for. Thanks for the review futon.

I could never get either one of 2 I bought to go into maintenance mode . I don’t think it’s worth ruining a battery to save money buying this junk from Viking . Poor quality and the performance of these units reflect that .

Is your vehicle on in anyway ? Your battery is connected. I wounder if it wóuld change if it was disconnected.

You said it went green after full charge and goes into maintenance mode. Then you said it stays red in maintenance mode. I’m confused

I had 2 hooked up at the farm on tractors. I went over today and both were not working. I did have 110 at both plug ins. I assume there was a voltage surge from the power company. Is there a internal fuse ? Thanks, Mike

Give it time first one was hood

Agreed.

A Hellcat mated to a Harbor Freight charger, what's wrong with this picture? Hint....it's not the Hellcat. Buy a CTEK and stop worrying, your car is worth it.

Planning to use this (1st time) over the winter on my car battery. Car is parked in a detached no-heat garage with door closed. OK? @once a week car will be started (not driven) for @ 10+ minutes. When doing this I will disconnect the electrical wall connection. OK? Thanks.

I think these are junk. Like fishing reels, they work good initially, and deteriorate thereafter. I bought 2 of these 2 years ago. They worked well as maintainers for 1 season. When I plugged them in this fall, no function. One had a blown 74 microfarad capacitor, and the other had no obvious fault, but didn't work. I'm back to the battery tender brand, albeit, at three times the price. Kind, Regards, Craig

The manual that comes with it is about useless, do you know what winter mode does ?

Someone commented that you do not have standard batteries in the Hellcat. Could the issues be that you have the wrong mode set?

Thanks for the video. Question, should I connect both alligator clip to the battery terminal. I want to keep it trickle charge when my car sit in the garage. The manual said: For negative-grounded vehicle, connect POSITIVE (RED) clip from battery charger to POSITIVE (POS, P, +) ungrounded post of battery. Connect NEGATIVE (BLACK) clip to vehicle chassis or engine block away from battery.

I hope your hellcat wasn't offended

On know the terminals on the Hellcat are different but for a standard battery, should you remove the car's terminal connectors to the battery before hooking up the maintainer clips to the car?

I’ve had mine on for several days, and it still is red and looks like it jumps from 11vdc to 12. The battery bar shows 1 to 2 bars….does this seem normal?

I just got one. Think it’s bad. It won’t go in maintenance mode. Got to 14.5 then down to 13. Then kept charging. Until I notice top of battery wet. Means it’s over charging and boiling the battery. Will return it for a new one and see if it works. Just my luck.

When charging the battery does the Viking need to be plugged up ?

This "charger" is probably best used as a maintainer for a car battery; best to use a 10/2 A charger for a battery of that size that isn't near full charge. I've used this charger for smaller batteries like you'd see in a scooter, UPS or alarm system, and that's a much better application for using this to both charge and maintain.

I see you have a CTEK charger video now. How do the two chargers compare?

Maintaining a hellcat with harbor freight???

Anyone know if I can run this charger off of a lithium “ solar generator” that can do up to 250 watts?

I bought this a while ago and finally got around to taking my battery out of my car to charge it, but I wanted to ask, the operation section in the manual tells me to attack a 24 inch long, 6 gauge AWG insulated battery cable to the negative battery post, and then plugging in the actual negative clamp to the free end of the cable after connecting the positive clamp to its post on the battery. Does this mean I have to go out and buy the battery cable it mentioned or can I charge it without? I tried leaving it charging without for a while and it would jump around voltage levels and after a while displayed 7.5v and full battery icon with a red screen, then it only displayed the "bad battery" icon.

A sitting battery with 14.5 volts! indicates a bad battery

How long to charge this unit from zero/new?

Says gel but no gel setting

Why are you even using that toy when in the background of your video their is a 200.00+ battery charger???

I have a marine 12v deep cycle battery, do I charge it on regular mode or agm

you could of bought a new battery with all you spent on this video. just saying buy you a new battery

Guy you have a Dodge Hellcat and your wasting your time with a $30 Harbor Freight charger. Get out and hit the road in that bad boy and don't look back.

75k car and a 24 dollar charger. Hmm.

Why you breathing so hard? Your hardly moving.

Im on my way to harbor freight to return it

For its price, this thing has helped me a great deal in saving marginal bats. Your "review" seems shallow and ill-informed.

Aside from the strange fluctuations of voltage, so you don't know what is going on, there is vague statement in the owner's manual.It says that it adjusts current according to battery state of charge and capacity. The rule of thumb for sizing chargers is to never charge higher than 10% of the battery's rated A/hr capacity. That would normally nean that this charger is too big for anything under 40A/hr. That would eliminate all kinds of garden, sports and motorcycles that use batteries smaller than that. There is nothing in the manual about minimum size battery except the vague statement that suggests it might be able to charge at less than 4A. From past experience, I know better than to call the HFT help line . They will read the owner's manual to you and they have no technical info or expertise beyond that. As this reviewer only had a 50% success rate getting a good charger, the up and down cycling of battery voltage made no sense to me and I can probably only use it on my truck and cars, I will pass. Thanks for the review. It served it's purpose to help me make a buying decision. No Sale!! The normal multi stage charger charges at constant current until a battery reaches a certain voltage and then charges at constant voltage until full charge Then it goes into float or maintainence mode. I haven't a clue as to what this one was doing.

Well that was about a waste of time

This thing is a total piece of crap do not buy this, I purchased one hooked it up and it drains batteries instead of charging them for a drains them to 0 V, what a pile of crap

This rally bad video see black the screen