car battery dead

Or make one. Any 2 to 3 amp, regulated to a max of 13.8 volts will work. Add an ampmeter, and you're all set.

I've heard some dubious things about the cheap switcher types.. like they refuse to charge if the battery is too far gone.

It's not really a substitute, but I got one of those SLA based starter things for something like $60 (lighted alligators, etc). It takes forever to charge (10-15 hours) but starts the car right away and she can throw it in the trunk in case she gets stuck at her next stop.

I managed to destroy a xfmr-rectifier one by leaving it on the emergency start (60 or 80A claimed) for too long, and depending on the overtemperature thermostat to cut it off-- it actually smoked the xfmr), but I'd buy one again, at least until I'm sure they have got the cheap switchers done right.

I "good" way to make a low cost charger is to run the electronics on the battery to be charged. You only need a power transformer and a gate drive transformer. You don't need any primary side power supply circuit to run any primary side electronics. The whole secondary side electronics could be a diode and single chip and a fuse.

You could produce a nice one, but people (en masse) tend to gravitate to buying crap (cheap) rather than paying for decent, so it's probably a losing game. There are a number of dedicated control chips/microprocessors available, or you could do it with any number of general purpose ones, or even elegant old-fashioned analog design, though that's either harder or at least more subtle.

A good design would include temperature sensing at the clamps (at least a reasonable approximation of actual internal battery temperature, without requiring a separate sensor stuck to the battery) and separate charge/sensing leads (or just sense while shutting the charge off for a short period) with appropriate adjustments to charging voltages. Typical process would be constant current charge to a somewhat higher voltage (adsorb) for a few hours, followed by dropping back to a holding voltage (float). Inexpensive chargers don't do this, which is one reason why leaving them connected for a long time is bad news. Few expensive chargers even bother paying attention to temperature.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

use the alternator. do the hard push uphill jumpstart routine once more, and drive it somewhere that sells batteries. Replace the failed battery.

Next time, replace the battery when it starts to fail instead when it is completely shot. Make sure there's nothing else draining the battery like a bad alternator when the car is stopped.

Knowing the cause is essential. I have had dead batteries for years on vehicles not used much. I like putting deep discharges in those, as they seem to hold up better.

I think my trusty Schurer 4 amp is the longest lasting unit I have. I',ve built some using the Unitrode/TI analog IC. Those are currently not working for one reason or another. they were the best. Then I have a 10 charger, and a 50 amp my brother has. I use the 10 and I also use the Harbor Freight trickle charger that works very well.

I have left batteries on charge for up to a week on very bad cases. Thats when there is no current being drawn at first.

I keep thinking of adding that little solar charger to the truck.

greg

John didn't say anything about battery *failure*...

I've found leaving the lights on, trunk or door open long enough will suffice, but my car is practically an antique (no more periodic mandatory emissions testing!)

We have emmisions teasting based on number of miles driven. Isn't that how it should be ?

greg

Nice thing about the big nasty Sears ones is that they tolerate amazing amounts of abuse and keep working. Once the price pressure really got to work on the switcher models, I'd expect them to croak if you touched the clips together.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

She and I probably couldn't push it out of the driveway. Building a charger was the easy way. It worked.

The car wasn't used for a few days. Battery was 2.9 volts. Cause unknown. No obvious loads.

How do the authorities know how many miles have been driven?

John

I suggest just going to Walmart or whatever and getting a battery charger. The first time you use it will prove its worth. You can solve a problem right in your driveway. You'll be glad you did.

On a sunny day (Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:59:19 GMT) it happened snipped-for-privacy@zekfrivolous.com (GregS) wrote in :

In the winter, at -10C, my car battery was problematic with starting. So took it out in the evening, charged it with a car headlight in series as constant current source from something like 15 V unregulated DC, several amps... Full in the morning, and at a nice temperature so it would start, Sure Larkin must have a decent lab supply with current limiting???????? Using the bulb in series you can calculate how long you can leave it on (overnight) without overcharging (has he an amp meter????).

Anyways at the local store you can pick up a cheap charger for a couple of Euros, or just google via one of those price index sites on internet. For the non-technical without any equipment....

On a sunny day (Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:22:06 -0400) it happened Phil Hobbs wrote in :

You can make a nice regulated one with one thyristor and an opamp, some LM317, with voltage and current limiting. Did that in the eighties, cooked a 100Ah battery with it too, think I have the volts a bit too high.. not sure..

In Ontario, light vehicles require emissions testing every 24 months unless the vehicle is >20 years old (at the time of sticker renewal-- which is typically due at yer birthday).

I don't know how they'd enforce a miles-driven rule, it would give people a fairly strong incentive to fudge the odometer declaration on their cars when they renew the license stickers.

The testing standards seem pretty lax- even with a bad oxy sensor (really rich mixture) my car passed. I think they're just looking for the extreme cases that are polluting 5x or 10x what is normal.

I've replaced many batteries and never needed to know the cause unless the replacement battery showed up dead in a week (only happened once).

The rest of the time, the batteries simply failed because the previous owner never maintained them, or more recently it has been because the phoenix summer killed them.

The way I did it as a poor student... light bulb, diode, extension cord. Make sure common is on the car chassis side ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

Or a bad brake light switch... happened to me with a good battery. Finally, taking out trash on a really dark night, I noticed a slight glimmer of the brake lights :-(

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

Yep. "Five year" batteries last two years in Arizona :-(

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

I bought one from this company to charge my 48v gokart. It's switching style,

3 stage charger. The smallest 12 volt charger they have is a 12 amp. Might be overkill for you but I wanted the 3 stage to better care for my gokart batteries. Mike