12V Circuit breakers for auto battery chargers

It's a safety issue. The charger isn't rated to put out 100A continuously. It's for car starting. If the car starts before the breaker flips, you're good to go. You also don't want joe sixpack to put 100A into a battery with a shorted cell for very long.

What's your definition of "identical".

It's a 15A charger, so may not make any practical difference that you'd be able to determine from a one-line description on an EBAY page.

Can't you buy it from a local car parts place?

Direct link from manufacture's website, for parts ordering.

Since it's for a battery charger, and not a vehicle, I never thought to ask. But I can call and find out....

Just to update this, I called the local parts stores. Most said they dont have such a thing. One said he could look if I know what make and model of car has them. A couple of them referred me to a local rebuilder for starters, alternators, and electric motors. I've dealt with that place and have never had a good opinion of the place or the owner. For example, I took in a starter, and he charged me $90 to rebuild it. (I could have bought a rebuilt starter for $60 at the parts store). Worse yet, he did not rebuild it properly, because it quit working a couple days later, leaving me stranded. He made me remove it from the car, tested it, and said there was nothing wrong with it, and claimed it was something wrong with my car. I reinstalled it, cleaned all cables and terminals. A week later it quit again, once again, he made me remove it. When I took it to him, I told him that I wanted a completely different starter. He refused, so I phoned my lawyer who showed up in his shop and threatened him with legal action. He did give me another starter, and it worked. But that cost me lawyer fees on top of his ripoff price.

Anyhow, I did call that asshole today, and he said he can get those parts, When I asked the price, he said he would have to contact Schumacher and he could order parts for me. But he said that he would not order any parts until he tested the transformer and rectifiers in my charger. He said that the transformer is probably shot. I told him that I already did test everything, and everythin is fine, I just need the breaker. I went on to tell him it does charge a battery if I jumper across the breaker.

He clearly told me that unless I'm in his line of business, that I dont know how to test it properly, but said that he'll be happy to repair the charger for me........ I wont repeat the words I said before I slammed down the phone. I can order from Schumacher myself directly. I dont need that asshole. But I'd prefer to buy the much cheaper parts on ebay. It's just a fairly cheap battery charger. But hey, I fix what I can. Money dont grow on trees, and I hate dumping repairable stuff in landfills. If I had the part, it would already be fixed. It's a 15 minute repair.

I've seen them used in place of fuses for the headlights on cars, School buses & RVs. Is there an RV dealer near you?

As far as the idiot you talked to, battery chargers aren't rocket science, and the repair people in that field aren't all that smart.

Sounds like the obvious solution.

Sounds like a custom auto breaker. Most Automotive breakers are 15, 20 or 30A. I'd order it thru Schumacher. There might be a reason it's 35A and it may have a special thermal curve.

Cheers

Ok, I know they are used in vehicles, but I didn't know what for. Now that you told me, I'll have to chack around for RV dealers.

You got that right.... A battery charger is one of the most simple electric devices I can think of repairing, (except for getting the parts for some of them). It's just a basic power supply with an amp meter.

That idiot is not smart, he just thinks he is, and does his best to make everyone look like they know nothing. Almost everyone in town hates the guy, and they all go to another motor rebuilder in another town about 25 miles away. That includes the auto parts store right across the street. If the parts store cant get the part, they recommend the repair guy 25 miles away, rather than this idiot who's shop is right across the street. Even my lawyer has a few choice words to say when he went there about that starter issue.

The charger does work just fine, except for that breaker. I wired a regular 30A plug fuse across the breaker, and charged up my car battery before. At least I can use it till I get the part. I only had it charge on the 15A setting, so I knew the fuse would hold up, but still be there in case of a dead short. Most dead shorts are caused because the clips touch each other when we're hooking them up. It never fails! I always wondered why they dont put some covering on the clips so only the teeth are bare. That would not be rocket science either!

Here are photos of a lot of styles of automotive breakers. They are also used on boats.

It looks like 35A isn't a common value.

I used to rebuild some vacuum cleaner motors, and sell them back to the guy who gave them to me as scrap. He was convinced that I had an armature lathe to clean up the commutators. I used a large ink eraser to polish the contacts & a modified Exacto knife blade to undercut the mica. Drop in a new set of brushes, and maybe a new bearing and they were ready for another 10 years of reliable service.

Although the local auto parts stores said they did not have them, I went to NAPA and asked to see the auto fuses. They had them right there on the rack, but not 35A. They had 30A and 40A. I decided to better protect the charger, I'd go with the 30A. It's installed, the charger works fine on the 2A and 15A settings. I have not yet tried it on the

Using your link, It looks like this one:

The one thing I found a little puzzling was the silver and copper colored studs. I didn't know there was a polarity to these, but I connected it the same way (colors) as the original one.

I still cant understand how they rate this one at 100A when it only had a 35A breaker, I can only assume it's like they rate audio amps. Rather than RMS, it's peak. So the charger can put out 100A for a brief amount of time when the car is being started. (just a guess).

Now I'll have to dig out the other 2 or 3 dead battery chargers I got laying around, and see if I can fix them. I know for fact that one of them needed a breaker, but I could not identify the size and the charger is some generic no name brand. I think it's a 10A charger, so I'd guess a 10A breaker would work. Since it's winter, now is a good time to fix items like this. In warm weather I'm too busy with big projects.

That's a great idea how to clean up those motor commutators. I've rebuilt some motors myself, usually used emory cloth. Motors are not that complicated, it's just having the right equipment, particularly of the coils need to be rewound. That local idiot got all the equipment when another business shut down because the owner retired or died.... That was before I lived here, but I always hear how nice the original owner was, and what an asshole this new guy is.

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They are thermal breakers, with a time constant. The 100A mode is for a quick attempt to start a car with a low battery. The starter should be run for more than a few seconds at a time. By the time a 100A breaker would trip, the charger would be damaged, possibly beyond economical repair.

Winter? I had to fire up the A/C yesterday. :(

I run the motors on an isolated, variable DC power supply & polish the armature while it's running at a low speed. I junked the burnt windings, since I gota lot more motors in than I could ever sell. I would strip a pile of the same type, and put together as many as I could with the good parts. My favorites were the 'Lamb Electric' single & double stage. Very common, and easy to repair. The motors for the Rainbow paid the best. New motors were $125 so I cound get $50 for a rebuild that took 15 minutes. Sometimes I rebuilt the one they dropped off, and I always quotes two hours time to fiux one so they didn't get too pushy. That way I could do my electronics work, and still have time to fix one on time. :)