Aldi Intelligent Battery Charger

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Positive earth was popular on some post WW2 UK vehicles, but went out when electronics started arriving. So if it's newer than about 35 years old, unlikely to be positive earth.

[alan_m]

Around my way I'm not sure how the local Co-op branded stores survive. There are two stores, one occupying a large 3 storey building with only the ground floor with public access and a smaller convenience type store. Both are competing with nearby Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose, and Asda outlets yet they have very high prices.

Its on sale until its gone and I've never seen a repeated delivery of an item. Popular items sell out within hours. Less popular items can be in the stores for weeks. If you are after living items such as plants you have to get them as soon as possible because they will never be watered.

My local Lidl/Aldi don't seem to reduce the price of items until the last broken one is still on the shelf. Not all stores get the same allocation so one store may sell out of the ten items they had delivered but the same size store 15 miles away still has 200 on the shelves.

[Dave Liquorice]

Not exactly honest but I like the idea. B-)

The dishonesty is around the "don't like it", as one obviously does... A "better" reason for returning one against the full price reciept is required.

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes you have but not substantiated the claim in anyway, only used it to try and knock Aldidl chargers. No make and model of this charger that overchargers or indeed the one you say you have but doesn't.

[78lp]

But their offer is a full refund if you decide you won't want it.

And you don't when you can get one cheaper |-)

But easy to keep it in that situation.

[Dave Liquorice]

I like your thinking. B-) Need to read the small print of their returns policy very carefully. This sort of thing can keep lawyers in caviar and champagne for years. B-)

[Capitol]

My Lidl charger died.

[Dave Liquorice]

battery

charger

That's two Lidl ones that have had problems. Mr Plowman had to replace the switch in his. What mode of death did yours employ?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So what does an intelligent 24v 4 amp one cost?

Rather a different argument. If you can get at the connection between the two batteries and use two chargers, I'm not quite sure how the charge would be uneven?

Well, this is a DIY group, so I'd hope most would be aware of battery connections. But the Lidl unit won't be worried by reverse connection anyway.

In which case you're stuck with the expensive maker's charger.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If it's the Lidl one, it's faulty.

[Peter Parry]

I have both, and both switch to a maintenance pulse charge when the battery is full. Neither overcharge either standard (vehicle) batteries or smaller SLA.

[Capitol]

Straightforward suicide, no output.

[Capitol]

ps, I now use the 10 yr old Draper, designed for SLAs and will next buy a 50A charger that's not intelligent for car use.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

On the earlier ones, usually just the selector switch, if it still showed an LED when powered up.

New switch cost me 3 quid for 10 from China, via Ebay.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

How often do you need to charge a car battery that quickly?

[Davey]

We had two, one in our village, which charges prices a lot higher than the town supermarkets, but is always full, as it's the only shop in the village. After school closing time, all three tills are open, and there is still a long queue. It must be a gold mine. It has a very good wine selection, all the time. The big one in town closed down, to nobody's surprise, and became our only Aldi. They took down some healthy trees to enlarge the car park, removed a wall that was used as a town noticeboard, and the car park is never full. It gives me the shivers whenever I go in there, English is a second language, and I want to have a shower when I get home, more from the other customers than the shop itself.

[Bill Wright]

My dad's 1948 Morris Commercial was pos earth.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

I'm not knocking anything. Why would I? I have nothing against cheap gear if it works OK, and I have no knowledge of the charger under discussion. It was a general warning.

No make and model of this charger

I can't understand what you're saying because of your lieracy problem. Are you calling me a liar? If you are being that rude, well, f*ck off.

The charger I mentioned is a Sunpower 4A. Maybe this individual one has a fault; I don't know. I certainly wouldn't condemn the model or the brand on the basis of one unit. But my reason for posting wasn't based on that one example. It was a general warning that before people trust a charger ('intelligent' or educationally sub-normal, it doesn't matter) to not overcharge when left connected indefinitely they should check the charge rate once the battery is fully charged, to make sure the maintenance charge isn't more than a few mA.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

£50/60? Not too bad for a thing designed to do the job instead of a botch.

What's your answer to this point?

And the possibility of uneven charging would

Marginal difference in performance between the chargers due to tolerances. It takes a minute variationin the charger's output voltage under low load conditions to have a big effect on the charge rate and duration towards the end of the charging cycle.

I hope it's a Do it Properly Yourself group not just a Do it Yourself group.

Dunno about you, but I can fit an XLR plug on the end of a cable. And in any case, if you go to the right place you can get a 24V charger with the plug fitted for not much.

There are lots on eBay for £30.

I have used several Numax 24V 4A and 7A chargers. The latter are £50/60 (£70 from a disability shop plus VAT if you don't have exemption) They have fan cooling and a very good automatic charging regime.

You really need a 7A charger. 4A just isn't enough except for the very small scooters that use two 12Ah batteries. A medium scooter will have two 33Ah batteries. Assuming an average charge rate of 3A and 100% efficiency that needs 11 hours. Not too bad, but what about a large scooter with two 110Ah batteries? Even a 7A charger will need a longer charge than might be convenient.Fortunately it is very rare that these bigger scooters run the batteries completely flat.

Another point is that if you charge a scooter by means other than the XLR plug you are bypassing the safety system that inhibits operation whilst connected.

Bill

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Same would apply to charging two 12v batteries in series with a 24v charger. Unless they are exactly the same after some time in service, which is unlikely.