Battery Charger

[Nick]

Hi to all, i'd like to ask if the default batery charger (contained in the goldenmotor kit) automatically cuts off the charging when battety is full (red light turns into green). Thanks...

[C1]

I haven't tested mine yet (except just plugging it in to the mains), but this battery charger looks and feels VERY cheap and nasty. Mine has a marking that says it was manufactured in 1999, and the plug even had a bit of rust on it! Of course I replaced the plug with a new 3A fused one from my country (UK), and checked all of the wiring with a multimeter because someone reported that the wiring was wrong in their charger, which could cause a fire.

Basically I wouldn't rely on this charger, get a decent 12v charger and either charge them in parallel or individually. But be careful to get a charger that doesn't output too many amps, some "car" chargers may be too "strong" for smaller e-bike batteries.

[philf]

The supplied chargers do, in fact, work fine with SLA batteries.  Stopping at full charge, and providing a trickle after that.

HOWEVER...

All three of the chargers I have received have had their plugs (battery side) wired in reverse polarity to what the GM kit expects.  If you plug the charger into the battery without correcting this, it'll smoke instantly.  (Although there appears to be a reverse=polarity protection diode inside, some of the PCB traces burn up before the external fuse).

I reversed the output on the other two units, and they have worked fine, though I bought an additional charger (a 36V "Battery Minder")  which I use in place of the fried unit.  When the PCB traces were repaired on the latter, the charger worked fine - BUT, the end-of-charge detection circuit was gone, too, meaning it would charge forever.  I tossed it.

[emarty]

I haven't had any problems with my battery chargers.  Just remember to hook up to batteries first before plugging in and unplug charger before disconnecting batteries from charger.  If you don't then the ouput transisters will be biased to conduct full on when you hook up the batteries and you can fry your charger.

[Nick]

Thanks GUYS I thinks it's better to buy a new one...

[pdonahue]

The supplied chargers do, in fact, work fine with SLA batteries.  Stopping at full charge, and providing a trickle after that.

HOWEVER...

All three of the chargers I have received have had their plugs (battery side) wired in reverse polarity to what the GM kit expects.  If you plug the charger into the battery without correcting this, it'll smoke instantly.  (Although there appears to be a reverse=polarity protection diode inside, some of the PCB traces burn up before the external fuse).

I fried my charger because it was reversed as well.  When I hooked up the battery I saw smoke, but looking inside I can't see where anything burned.  Any ideas for attempting to fix it?  Currently, when it's plugged into the wall, the red LED flashes rapidly.  It looks like a simple circuit.  Has anyone managed to repair a charger after hooking it up reverse polarity?

Pete

Pete

[fbvisitor]

A note to all Australian buyers.

I recieved a charger with correct input voltage but with the wrong plug. After reading the above posts I thought I should open up the charger to check out the wiring colour coding before I fitted the correct plug.

Thank god I did.

Brown was connected to the (N) neutral.

Blue was connected to (L) Line (also known as Active).

This is arse about face. I'm sure one Capacitor at least would have gone bang at the very least.

To save getting the soldering iron out I just wired the plug appropriately.

It worked fine after this necessary "mod"

Cheers.