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One More Battery Issue: Charging

For those of you who 'chimed in' for me with regard to my scooter and the placement of another set of batteries, I have encountered a problem: charging. I have (had) a 12 volt charger that worked very well; that is, it worked until I attempted to place the charger on the three sets of batteries (as some of you may recall, I mentioned that I had three sets -- all of them are arranged in the same fashion, and the scooter works fine -- just gives me more time between charges -- a lot more time). When I attempted to hook it to the configured batteries, 'something' blew inside the charger.

Realizing that I now have these batteries (which have been secured by a friend, in a very orderly, neat fashion), can I use a battery charger, such as one that my father-in-law has for charging his battery in his vehicles? There are a number of settings, so I suppose I would need to ensure that it is on the correct one. It is one of those chargers that is on wheels, and has a dial on it; it charges both 12 and 6 volt batteries, with a wide range of selections.

Thanks.

Mark

Reply to
mea305
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Were these batteries SLA's? If so, I'm afraid that big charger will cook them.

Post the battery specs again to remind us what you have.

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

Hello Mark,

I wonder if the term isn't "lead-acid, maintenance-free" rather than "acid-free lead." That would make them what are more commonly called sealed, lead-acid (SLA) batteries.

A google search on "acid-free lead" and its permutations turned up a large number of what seemed to be poor translations into English, but from the context, they appear to mean "lead acid, maintenance-free" batteries.

You might also provide any information you have on the charger.

Chuck

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Reply to
chuck

It's possible that, if you connected the batteries in parallel, the immediate drain on the charger would have been more than the unit could take and you have either blown a fuse or a rectifier. If it's a fuse, then no real worries - replace!

If it's the rectifier, then you need to replace it too, if possible.

I'd suggest placing a low resistance power resistor in series with the charger and the parallel batteries. I can't give you an exact number of ohms because I don't have your battery specs, but it should be at least a 20 watt resistor. It cuts down on the current, albeit at a cost of some power, but the plus side is that its temperature can be used to measure the charge on the battery, since the greater the charge on the battery the less current will flow through the circuit and the resistor will cool.

Hope this helps

Sean

Reply to
Sean

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