Battery charger sort of dead

Sounds like it's broken but without more information that's only a guess.

Hi there Paul, I think you have answered your own qusestion as to wether its stuffed or not, if its dryed out the battery in other words cooked it then its definately playing up, wether to fix it or not depends on what you payed for it in the first place to wether its worth getting fixed. If they are willing to check it out for you at no cost then let you know what the problem is and how much then you can make your own mind up wether it is worth it or not. Some places now charge you up front to have a look then if you decide to get it fixed you just have to make up the difference. Reason they do that is so they hopefully get the job which is fair enough its there time which means money as you would know.If they dont charge to look at it but inform you its stuffed I always take it with me as some times its some thing they can fix in two minutes then sell it second hand, I have been cought before so now unless its getting fixed it comes home with me and gets a hammer put through it unless the parts are useful to mates or some one that I know. Regards Steve M

i thought i had same problema few months back...battery was cooked next morning....red light still on.....had charger checked out by supplier..OK he said....??? do i believe...of course/yes ...so went to bros inlaw (he's an autoelect) and had all checked...battery shiet itself when on charger ...and charger was ok.....
got new battery and all is good

Hey all

Sorry for not enough info but not sure what to say. There has definitely been no "cooking" of a battery. When the battery was dead after the powered site venture the battery was full of battery acid and a jump start got it going and it has held full charge since.

So the battery charger indicated with green light on that it was charging the whole time but apparently a 3.7amp hour drain over 2 days drained it competely so whatever the charger was putting in it certainly wasn't 15 amp hours.

At home it brought a fairly new Exide Extreme from 12.57v to 12.69v where it stayed a few hours after disconnection but as with the camping trip at no time did the float stage light come on.

Recently, and i didn't mention this before, if the green light is on and its going clappers with the fan etc but i know it should be in the 2nd or third stage i jig the connections to the battery and invariably it goes straight to float stage. I knew something was dodgy at that stage.

So it's probably putting in one amp hour or something i dunno.

I paid about $180 for it i think, just out of warranty, I'll go back to the seller if i can find the reciept, but maybe here is the case of don't buy the no name brand.

paul

Is it one of these types? www.durst.com.au/

I have 2 of these 15amp chargers mounted permanently in back of Patrol and the camper trailer. Never had a problem (so far).

I would have thought a good charger would include an amp guage so you could see what was happening. The cheapies seem to manage that much!

Otherwise checkl to see there is voltage unconnected and see if it will run an old light bulb. The voltage should be somewhat higher than 12 volts so dont let it burn out. You could try the cig lighter on it too as it will take a little while to heat up. Cig lighters aren't good for anything anyway.

An old instructer told me that electrical faults are often mechanical faults so check the leads for continuity and a good connection each end. (Having the polarity correct usually helps but I wont accuse you of that)

You said that you charged other batts so perhaps it is not the charger but something else that happened on the night you used it. Maybe it was shorting on the chassis or something and shut itself down.

An auto electrician should tell you in two minutes if it ok if you care to go down that road. Some of them might not even charge you it's that simple.

anyway good luck with it either way.

Owen

Hi Paul,

A battery with a dropped cell will cause your charger to never get to float as it is now trying to charge five 2 volt cells instead of six. Smart 3 stage chargers are voltage and current sensing for the different charge profiles. If the battery had dropped a cell then it could have damaged the charger (however most good quality 3 stage chargers should have some protection against this - namely thermal protection).

Saying that I believe you did the right thing to test the charger by putting it on another known good battery so if it did not get to float after a reasonable amount of time then it is probably faulty.

May I ask what brand charger it is?

Regards
David