Lidl having sold one the week before last it is now Aldis turn.
From Thursday 22nd
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£14
Works as advertised including with Sealed Lead Acid (SLA). Excellent for anyone with a mobility scooter or wheelchair (you really need two or charge each battery in turn as most are 2 x 12V = 24VDC)
Thanks for this, Peter. It looks like a great deal for cyclists who use SLA batteries - and there are quite a few, usually those with home-brewed setups; often recumbents.
If you don't mind, I will post a note about this in the cycling group - crediting you, of course. Thanks again.
Only problem is if the battery is below a certain voltage they will not work,but you can put normal charger on for a short time then put the intelligent one on.
Thanks Peter, we do our Aldi and Morrison shop on Friday, so am tempted to buy one. However, I'm not very techy, your subject states "Intelligent charger" but this doesn't appear in the Aldi blurb? They simply state "trickle or permanent charge functions" etc..
Mousing over the fronts of say, the Wolf Intelligent, the Ring Automotive or the Streetwize Master Charger, suggests similar technology :-
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However, if the Aldi permanent charge = intelligent charge (at half the price) ... then I'll buy one.
My local Aldi has never had anything I wanted to buy, even the much-lauded wine stock is surpassed by our local Co-op. But this charger sounds worthwhile. Does a Daily Special only go on sale for that day, or until they run out?
Only have the Lidl one(s). The current Aldi one looks different - appears to have an LCD display. But may have the same spec.
Intelligent and smart are merely advertising terms. Doubt they have any definition in law.
The Lidl one claims approx 4 amp output. Yet charges a car battery so low it won't start the car in about the same times as my older, much bigger and heavier Halfords one which claims 11 amps. My guess is the Halfords one is basically unregulated, so the charge rate will vary greatly as the battery charges - reducing to a lower than 4 amp rate quite early on. And the Lidl one regulates to 4 amps all the time it's charging. Which would account for it being as fast, given the smaller output. And when fully charged it switches to a small maintenance charge to keep the battery at peak.
It really does all I ask of a small charger. So IMHO exceptional value.
Until they run out, normally. May even reduce the price if they don't shift quickly - Lidl does.
With Lidl (don't have a handy Aldi) some special offers sell very quickly. Some can lie around for quite some time. Sod's law says it's the one you want which sells out by 9am.
I have both the older type (which I repaired the switch on after advice from this group) and the ones with the voltage display which I use to keep a 24V tractor topped up. What I notice is each battery gets charged to 13.4 Volts and then the voltage drops down to 12.5V without the charger kicking in automatically. I previously thought the trickle charge was maintained?
I've got an Aldi and Lidl one, Apart from the display (Aldi is LCD, Lidl LED's) the specification is the same, size is similar and both behave similarly.
5 seconds on google will get you manuals for both from the 'net.
A quick look at the specs for both has the Aldi one minimum charge currents of 0.8/0.07 A, the Lidl one only 0.8 A. However all the other fuctions are identical so it may just be missing information rather than an actual difference.
Personally I prefer the LCD display of the Aldi with the voltage shown over the more reliable LEDs of the Lidl one. Not to mention I can get to an Aldi without making a special trip. Now do I gamble that they'll end up reduced in a couple of weeks or buy one, full price, on Thursday? Didn't work for the larger mobile phone power booster(*) but that was a "nice to have" rather than a "would really like".
(*) Picked up the smaller "toblerone" one reduced to £3.99, not quite enough available capacity to fully charge my phone but enough to keep me connected for a good few hours at then end of a day out and about using data/WiFi etc
We have a recent Aldi, the nearest Lidl is about 20 miles away. If it's anything like our Aldi, I would have to dress down to go in there. Sweatpants and a sweatshirt are too posh. Reminds me of a low-budget Wal-Mart, if there is such a thing.
Not like that round here. The huge mortgages probably mean those who would once have shopped in Waitrose now use Lidl. Especially since they have High Street stores now.
Don't really know Aldi - they haven't made it here yet.
Can't you buy one on Thursday, see if it gets discounted, if it does, buy one of the discounted ones, then return the one you bought on Thursday later for a full refund using Aldi's full refund if you decide you don't like it policy ?
Ah thanks, just had a look at the pdf re: 'Charging with battery in Vehicle'
I've always assumed that the neg terminal is attached to chasis but "there are exceptions". I'd better ring Toyota, there's no mench in drivers manual.
No I complained about the disability industry overcharging for items that can be obtained much more cheaply elsewhere.
Not that much more, having just had a look in CPC book.
Thing is though, it's inconvenient charging the two batteries one after the other. Most mobility scooters have two quite large batteries and as it would take this little charger 12 hours or more to achieve a full charge on one battery it would be annoying to only be able to use the scooter every second day. And the possibility of uneven charging would arise.
The option of using two chargers at once doesn't appeal to me at all. Too much chance of incorrect connections.
But the main objection is that since all scooters charge via a socket and the battery terminals are inaccessible the idea is a total non-starter.
I I've said elsewhere some of these cheap 'intelligent' chargers aren't too clever. I have one here that overcharges when the battery is fully charged.
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