Aldi battery charger

[ffrenchie]

Is the battery you are trying to charge absolutely dead ? The "intelligent" chargers will not charge a completely discharged battery. I have a dumb charger, no sensors, with a 24v and a boost function to get them going again. I lent my Aldi charger to someone and forgot about it till now but I have an Optimate for trickle charging which also has a desulphate function but it was about 3 times the price of the Aldi version.

[cancunia]

I now have 3 chargers (and probably too much time to think about them) :
A 1960's or 70's 4 amp Bradex, it doesn't care so long as it can get a circuit through the battery it'll pump out the amps. Great for almost dead batteries, problem is that you need to keep an eye on it.

A cheapo Chinese 'smart' charger, it works quite well & because it's so small it can't actually kill a battery & will switch to trickle charge, but it takes a long time to charge a car battery.

The shiny new Aldi charger. I tested it on an old car battery yesterday, it charged the battery and switched over to trickle charge at 150mA (checked via multimeter). Personally, I'd be happier if it trickled at less than that, but maybe it will reduce the charge after a while. It's charging my Volvo at the moment in 5 Amp mode. This is the reason I got it, being a Volvo the lights are on all the time & short trips to the shops don't charge the battery. There are some reports from an Ozzie web site that the charger does not switch from 5A to trickle and ruins batteries. My guess is that it will keep pumping out the high charge until the battery reaches a set voltage, so if the battery is a bit faulty it may cook it. The one major gripe with this charger is that it won't alternate between V&A on the display, I think the Lidl charger is the same.

If anyone reading this (Zion?) can come up with a cheap circuit to add an ammeter to the charger, I'd be grateful.

[bikerbaker]

I love the term "Battery Boiler". I mourn the demise of the one I bought in 1974 that finally died circa 2005. It "reconditioned" quite a few apparently dead batteries in it's time. Of stout metal construction it was an essential item in starting my ex wife's Corsair V4 and even survived being dragged alongside the car on a school run. "Something's wrong with the car, it's making a banging and scraping noise."

Got a selection of Lidl, Halfords smart chargers and a couple of Optimates (but not the CanBus one I really need for my BMW). The smart chargers are a pain and the Lidl ones give all the appearance of being faulty when attached to a discharged battery IMHO.

What I do have is an 80W solar panel on my workshop roof with a charge controller connected to a pair of crocodile clips. This will charge a deeply flat battery over a day or two and then switch off. I have a shelf with my bike batteries on, connected in parallel and attached over non riding months. Still working well after about 6 years so one of my better decisions I reckon.

[cancunia]

I'd forgotten about the wind charger!
A friend gave it to me a few years ago, I mounted it on the side of the garage but never connected it to a load, he also gave me a regulator for it. The plan was to use it for trickle charging bike batteries. Unfortunately, the rotor got smashed when something flew into it on a very windy day. I could't bring myself to pay £40 for a new one.

[RattyCortina]

I tried it on the battery that came off the Cortina, I charged it up about 6 months ago when I moved garages and IIRC I've charged it since as well. It was showing 12.something volts with a meter, I thought maybe the charger wouldn't show anything if it was already fully charged so I left a work light connected to it for a couple of hours till it came down to 9.something volts - still nothing.

[cancunia]

Mine's going back to Aldi tomorrow. It wouldn't keep the 5 Amp charge going & looked like it would only charge at 0.8A. It's hard to be certain, but I'm fairly sure it's faulty.

Having read a bit more about the Lidl version, I'm going to wait for that to come around again.

[RattyCortina]

I rang the helpline tonight, the guy said that it can take up to 15 minutes for the display to come on when you connect it to the battery. I'll try it again at the weekend and if no joy I'll take it back.

[ffrenchie]

I bought a 10 amp Parker brand charger on eBay in 2019 for about £35. It is old school with 24v and 12v plus boost and does a great job of bumping a battery back up but it has no sophistication and you do have to keep an eye on it, battery boiler is a good description for the old Bradex that it replaced which was more like an arc welder

[cancunia]

I've just ordered one of these. Lots of info online about them & only one person saying it doesn't work for them. On the plus side, it has an Amps display which is what's missing on the Aldi & Lidl versions, it also has a cooling fan. Only thing that I'm a bit worried about is that several videos show them outputting 16v, I have some old batteries to test it on & it'll be going back to China if it doesn't work properly.

https://www.onbuy.com/gb/12v-intelligent...1367460590

[RattyCortina]

Left it on for 20+ minutes last night... zilch. Will take it back at the weekend.