Xtreme Charge XC450 4.5-Amp All-Vehicle 6V/12V Battery Charger, Maintainer, and Conditioner

Don"t lose sleep wondering if your battery will crank your vehicle on a cold winter morning. Charge/maintain it withe the Pulsetech XC450

I like the feature having to select & start push buttons after I hook up the terminals instead of the charging beginning when circuit is completed. It does a wonderful job of restoring batteries. I put a higher amp charger on for the bigger storage batteries if this one does not get it restored & then switch back to the Xtreme to let it fully condition it.

When the power goes out the unit stops charging. It resets to starting mode which is no charging. you have to pick battery voltage, type of battery and then hit the start button. You can't put this on a battery and leave town. If the power goes out, it will stop charging. If this is newer tech, the older unit is better. I have 2 of the older units, and this one of the newer.

I’ll start this off by saying this, by all means, the product works. However outside the installation and startup instructions which are pretty much self explanatory are either completely contradictory or nonsensical.

First and foremost, the product page says it’s 4.5A, meanwhile the manual says it’s 4A+-10%.

Second, the “user guide and safety instructions” don’t line up with the “quick start guide”. the manual says things along the lines of a 7 stage charging process, however from what i can tell there are only about 3-5; Listed are only 4 “charging” modes, however i’m not sure that maintenance, which seems to be just shutting off the charger, could be considered a charging mode. Soft bulk charging vs regular bulk charging makes a bit sense, but is all listed under bulk. I’ve never seen the thing go into recovery mode once, though my battery is in fairly good shape. Float… well if you read it, it doesn’t make sense as an english sentence in either sheet, and they have completely different information. maintenance (which the user guide and safety instructions calls cycle charging) is actually the only one that actually makes sense, but allowing the voltage to drop to 12.6 on an AGM before recharging it seems to let it drop fairly low (allowing a drop to ~75% SOC). Then that same user guide and safety instructions includes things not in the quick start guide like absorption charging which doesn’t even explain what it does.

Third, having no temperature compensation in 2025 is unacceptable on a high end charger… what are we even doing here, i’m lucky enough to be able to charge in a temperature controlled garage, but i live in a place that gets down to -40 degrees (F/C° are the same) so this can be a major issue.

On a few positive notes here. you can absolutely hear when the pulsing is going on, it’s like a high pitch buzz and easily tell what phases do and don’t have it. The Voltage on AGM mode brings it up to above 12.8V easily without overcharging like other brands might do to desulphanate. The fuses absolutely protect the device and battery as i accidentally burnt one out when messing about. Lastly the quick connectors (unfortunately there isn’t a dust cap on the actual device, just the connectors) are a great addition not forcing you to use a proprietary connector or having it hard wired. On that note, including both an alligator clip and fixed bolt on connections, and the length of the cables is all perfect; the cable could be longer and that might be nice, but the current cable length is more than enough, not requiring an extension cord. lastly, and the reason i opted for this over the (other?) 4A charger by pulse tech, is the physical buttons to change modes. I won’t touch on the other one’s ability to detect the difference between regular lead acid and AGM batteries since i don’t own it, but being able to select exactly what i want considering i’ll be using this for multiple cars is a great option for me, and including the capability to charge LIFePO4 batteries is a nice extra.

Xtreme Charge XC450 4.5-Amp All-Vehicle 6V/12V Battery Charger, Maintainer, and Conditioner