Projecta IC1216 12V Battery Charger Review
An Australian multi-stage battery charger. What multi-stage charging actually does, and the widely available alternative.
Disclosure:As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This costs you nothing and never changes which tools we recommend. Read more.
The Projecta IC1216 is a 12V multi-stage battery charger. Projecta is an Australian brand and its distribution outside that market is patchy.
The useful part of this page is not the badge. It is what separates a charger that maintains a battery from one that slowly destroys it.
What multi-stage charging actually means
An old-style trickle charger pushes a fixed current until you unplug it. Leave it on and it overcharges, which boils off electrolyte, corrodes the plates and shortens the battery’s life. That is the whole reason multi-stage chargers exist.
A multi-stage charger runs through a sequence:
Bulk — constant current up to roughly 80 percent of capacity, which is the fast part.
Absorption — constant voltage while the current tapers, which is what actually fills the last 20 percent. Skipping this is why a quick charge never quite holds.
Float or maintenance — a low holding voltage that offsets self-discharge and nothing more. This is what makes it safe to leave connected for months.
Some chargers add a desulphation or recovery pulse for batteries that have sat flat. It genuinely works on mildly sulphated batteries and is not magic on dead ones.
Chemistry matters more than it used to
A flooded lead-acid battery, an AGM, a gel and a lithium LiFePO4 pack all want different voltages. Charging an AGM at flooded voltages cooks it; charging lithium on a lead-acid profile can be worse than that. Any charger worth buying lets you select the type, and getting that selection right is the most consequential thing you will do with it.
Sizing
Rule of thumb: charge current of about 10 percent of the battery’s amp-hour capacity is comfortable. A 10A charger suits batteries from roughly 50Ah to 200Ah — a car, a mower, a caravan battery with patience. A large deep-cycle bank wants more.
What to buy
The NOCO GENIUS10, linked below, is a 10A multi-stage charger with selectable profiles including AGM and lithium, a repair mode for deeply discharged batteries, and a float stage that makes it safe to leave connected over a winter.
If all you need is to stop a seldom-used vehicle going flat, a 2A maintainer costs far less and does that one job perfectly.
What works
- Multi-stage charging with a proper float mode, so it can stay connected to a seldom-used vehicle indefinitely
- Selectable chemistry including AGM and lithium, which a single-profile charger gets wrong
- Recovery mode will bring back a deeply discharged battery that a basic charger refuses to start on
What doesn't
- Ten amps is slow for a large deep-cycle bank — fine for a car, patient work on a caravan battery