Do battery chargers mostly suck, in your experience?

I have a lot of things, most of which have batteries, and therefore I have a lot of battery chargers.

My experience with them has been generally negative. The worst are the so called "smart" chargers.

The problem is that they are often the opposite of "smart". They go crazy and stop charging for no reason, or worse, drain the batteries. Additionally, they fail due to things such as cold weather or whatever, things any decently made item should handle.

The chargers, at least for lead acid batteries, would really be better off, if they simply tried to maintain 13.3 volts or some such.

My question is, is my experience unique and atypical, or have you also had bad experience with battery chargers.

Thanks

i
Reply to
Ignoramus7945
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Ignoramus7945 fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Ig, The problem with most consumer lead-acid battery chargers (and most of the pro versions, too) are built on 30-to-40-year-old technology.

The 'smartest' consumer lead-acide smart-charger isn't nearly as adaptable as the chargers on most kids' hand-held toys.

There are some smart 'maintenance' type chargers out there. But even those are 10-year-old tech.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Most simple lead-acid chargers do just that, and only for one battery voltage. The larger the charger, the more likely it is designed for one specific application.

The more elaborate they are, the more things that can go wrong to confuse the controller and trigger protective circuitry.

Smart chargers and particularly smart chargers intended to charge 'smart' batteries have the worst record. If you examine their state-machine organization, you will see innumerable vectors that result in incomplete charging functions, or cyclical fault loops, with little regard for completion of the intended task.

This is getting better, with time, but there is poor emphasis on battery charging integrity in the development of most new products that offer rechargeable battery options. It is considered as an add-on, or a feature that can be handled in firmware, despite the lack of experience that programmer's may have in the power electronics field.

As a result, established products can be expected to operate more reliably, as they benefit from their previous iterations, similar to other software-dependent applications.

RL

Reply to
legg

I like those chargers, thanks.

i

And this is why, any decent battery charger needs to have both amps AND volts displays. With these two you can figure out what is going on very quickly.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus7945

I love the variable number! Typical Wieber. LOL So are you a crazy hoarder, or are you the classic don't-fix-it-if-you-can-get-away-with-constantly-charging type of battery expert?

  1. Get a job so you can afford new batteries when needed.
  2. Learn how to diagnose electrical issues so that you're not dealing with dead batteries all the time.

Then you'll find you only need one decent battery charger for emergencies, or for helping people who ignored 1. and 2. Bonus, you can hold a yard and earn between $15 and $25 selling your fleet of chargers.

Reply to
whoyakidding

DC clamp multimeters are cheap and any serious DIYer should have one. Duplicating that functionality on a charger is more of a want than a need.

Reply to
whoyakidding

Nope. Over the years, I've found cause to blame the battery, the owner, the dealer, and the charger. Sometimes, it's bad combinations of the two. For example, the charger clearly says that it's for lead-acid flooded batteries, but the owner insists that it should charge an AGM or Gel type battery. I've lost count of how many times I've run into people trying to charge batteries that are obviously dead, leaking, or dry. Sometimes (not often) the chargers are just plain junk: As I vaguely recall, all but one of these blew up in service. The one that survived and another that was not in the photo, were pre-emptively replaced.

Smart chargers are actually better than crude chargers because they take the decision making responsibility away from the owner. Plug it in, walk away, and it's done. In 95% of the situations, that's fine and will work as advertised. However, you can get into situations where a smart charger can be fooled and will screw up. For example, it can't tell the difference between a shorted battery and a totally discharged battery. In order to protect itself (from fire and liability lawsuits), smart chargers refuse to charge such batteries. Yet, the battery is still good, but needs to be brought up slowly until the smarts in the smart charger decides that it's worthy of charging. If this is your problem, you can buy a charger that will do that automagically, or you can bring it up slooooowly with a simple trickle charger until the smart charger is happy. There are other situations that might cause problems, but I don't want to burn the time right now.

You can also create problems by having the battery and charger at different temperatures or using corroded or rotten battery leads. Both of these can fool a smart charger.

With the LiIon family of batteries, you have no choice in chargers. It's going to be a smart charger or forget about charging. Lots of reasons but the big one is that one tiny mistake with a LiIon type battery and it's toast or you start a fire. Again, the smart charger takes the decision away from the owner. LiIon also adds the need to use a "balance charger", which equalizes the voltage of each cell. "Equalization" can also done with flooded lead-acid cells if they get out of balance, but for LiIon, methinks it's a necessity. Of course, a balance charge requires a smart charger.

Basically, you have to evaluate each battery, battery charger, and user combination together. If one part doesn't fit well, it's not going to work. For example, you can have the worlds best battery and smart charger, but if the owner doesn't follow the instructions, it's unlikely to work. If you do decide to do your own thing, ask yourself "are you really smarter than the smart charger"?

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Cheap battery chargers are universally troublesome. Smart chargers will not charge a defective battery and are often optimized for, say, an automotive starting battery- and will balk at charging an 8Ah "gell cell"

Different horses for different courses - and no such thing as "universal"

Lead Acid batteries may never start to charge with a charger limitted to 13.3 volts - and would NEVER reach a full charge.

Reply to
clare

** The charges that really "suck" are ones that ruin the cells in short or der by overcharging and hence overheating them. Ones that rely on sensing t he temp of a cell or run for a fixed time are the main offenders.
** Most do just that, fixed current charge with a max voltage of 13.5 or so to float the cells. Smart ones can detect shorted cells or open circuit c onditions and do noting.
** Plenty - especially ones that try to fast charge loose cells removed fro m the item as if they were a pack.

FYI:

I have a cordless screwdriver ( Bosch, made in Switzerland) ) that has a no n removable pack and a fixed time charger, runs about 4 hours. Long as the driver is sluggish when you connect the charger it does the job fine every time with only a slight temp rise.

Its 20 years old now and I have replaced the 4 sub-C NiCd cells three times .

.... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

I have some good ones, until they broke. Some lead acid chargers I built with 80s. Chip, with temp sensing. Don't know if any still work. My trusty

4 amp manual charger for lead acid still working after 35 years. I got an old Eico variable variac battery eliminator is nice to use manually.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

My best experiences have been with old-school "dumb" chargers. I have a 4-amp model purchased over 40 years that is still going strong, works every time. Recently I purchased a modern charger but it would not work worth a damn even after returning for a replacement. So I went back to the old standby and picked up another similar charger at a flea market. That one also works great.

"New" and "improved" are not always the same thing.

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  Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.) 
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Reply to
Roger Blake

using Ctek with Optima batts...one Ctek-one Optima...excellent results...super super...

have a simpler n less expensive device from Powerstream for 6V.

tried rechargeable AA batts.....shoot on site.

Reply to
avagadro7

It's pretty safe to say most chargers are just stupid, but lots of batteries are also garbage, and neither can compensate for each other in the end.

Apparently the last batteries installed in the UPS at work were total pieces of garbage and are dying off before 5 years. They're larger than car battery sized so should last quite some time.

The testing company comes in and does an ESR test on each battery, which shows faults the charger (it's a 545 volt system) won't ever detect.

The charts for each battery are pretty cool, (sorry, I can't share them). I can note that one problem battery is about 250mV lower than the rest and has an ESR of 65,000 microhms vs an average of 15,000 for the rest. One year ago the bad battery had voltage of 14.00 which is high, so the failure wasn't sudden and the weird data shows up on various charts.

They've removed the funky battery from the battery string and then dropped the charger voltage in the UPS to prevent damage to the rest of the batteries.

Basically, if this battery which might explode under real use was attached to a 12V float charger all that would happen is more electroylte would just boil out, it would never finish charging and it wouldn't work right anyways. The charger would have no idea anything was even wrong without past performance data or known good specs for the battery being inputted anyways.

Batteries are can have complex failure modes that you just won't catch with a volt meter. It looks like full load on these batteries is about

150Amps, so it's any hot spots would get get really interesting buring a power failure.
Reply to
Cydrome Leader

The temperature sensing chargers are the worst. I used to deal with them in Kenwood handheld radios. There was a translucent red window in the bottom of the radio battery pack and another in the base of the drop in charger. When the NiCd battery got hot, the IR radiation would go through the windows to a sensor of some sorts in the charger and turn off the charging. At least that was the theory.

The problem was that by the time the surface of the NiCd battery cells were hot enough to register a temperature increase, it was already too late. For NiCd chemistry, the battery only gets hot AFTER it overheats. This system was really good for killing battery packs.

However, there was another problem. When the charger recognized that the battery was hot, it would shut down. After a while, it would cool down, start charging, and repeat the cycle over and over until the battery was finally truly and totally dead.

When NiMH arrived, things changed for the worse. Using a temperature sensor wouldn't work because NiMH normally would get warm while charging. Instead, there was a tiny drop in voltage just before the battery reached full charge. The smart charger chip would detect this drop in voltage and declare the battery to have been successfully charged. That works well until you drop a fully charged battery into the charger. There's no drop in voltage and the charger just keeps charging until the battery overheats and is truly dead.

LiIon chargers are all smart and do a good job of preventing overcharging. You can create a problem with dirty battery contacts, but that's rare. However, LiIon cells deteriorate when left at full charge for too long: Same with leaving it discharged or too hot. The main culprits are desktop replacement laptops, which tend to be left on charge 24x7. Many newer laptop have a charge control that stops charging at 50 to

60% to extend battery life. The next generation of LiIon chargers just might have an adjustable EoC (end of charge) control.
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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

AE6KS

following reduce max charge n allow depletion before recharging advice....

Ctek's and Optimas are mated...there's an Optima icon on the Ctek.

'Instead, there was a tiny drop in voltage just before the battery reached full charge. The smart charger chip would detect this drop in voltage and declare the battery to have been successfully charged.'

there is advice on NOT charging gel acids to max as max discharges gases ie depletes batt capacity n longevity. no odor detected.

Ctek's connection seems to declare the batt charged

as switching into SUPPLY after CHARGED produces substantially more running time than CHARGE ...poss 30% more..poss age related

8 year batts used for laptop/emergency auto start/small Holmes hospital clamp fan. Never depleted under 12V

The Odyssey batt connected to truck was good at 5 years but not new. The new one immediately improved ignition quality b a small fraction

Reply to
avagadro7

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