Hi,
I have two 8Amp battery chargers that I use on my mobility scooters that need repairing.
Do you know someone or a company who can repair them please.
Each battery charger new is about £145 and I don't really fancy binning them.
Try a local TV&Video repair shop? and if they don't they will probably put you onto a shop/person that does.
They are usually perfectly normal sealed lead acid chargers (24v or
12v). Maplin do a rather nice one (L16BQ) for
Have you had a look inside them? If you tell us what's in there, we might be able to help *you* fix them.
There will be a transformer rectifier unit plus a controller of some sort, a sealed unit full of electronics probably these days. Without test meters you can't check the rectifier unit or the electronics and if the transformer isn't burnt out you are stumped.
Not necessarily. Many sealed lead acid chargers are SMPSUs these days.
As stated in a previous post, I have several mobility scooter chargers. They are all switch-mode.
I always forget how long it is since I looked inside one. :-)
I think there's been some serious changes in the chargers used for scooters in the past few years. We recently bought a new mobility scooter, and the charger doesn't look much different to the charger for our laptop. Obviously the plug where it connects to the battery is different, but other than that, it's a world of difference from the big bulky car-battery style charger that the old scooter came with. Oddly, the plug on this charger is exactly the same as the ones fitted on microphone cables.
Usually they are blessedly simple, and the fuse has simply gone. Chances are its a blade type thing in the output
Huh? most of the ones I have seen for lead acid anyway are just transformer rectifiers..with enough impedance in them to reduce to trickle as the battery voltage nears 'fully charged'
Nickel cells unless you want fast charging are just low constant current things.
That sounds like a ripoff. A quick search seems to prove it
The scooters I've seen both used sealed 12 volt lead acid batteries. A normal car charger would have charged them.
Try a local auto electrician if you must have them fixed but I'd nip into the local car accessory shop and just get normal charger. Or buy one of those £26.50 ones
Blade type thing? you mean the finned rectifier.
Hell man technology has advanced dramatically since the ford popular days
And is limited to 4A charging. The OP's chargers are 8A, as was the one I suggested.
A "normal" unregulated high output car charger should never be used with sealed lead acid batteries. It can cause permanent irreversible damage in a single charge.
Following the former advice can leave the OP needing a new set of batteries, as well as a new (suitable) charger. The latter will need him waiting twice as long without the scooter, waiting for it to recharge..
The "impedance in them" limits the initial charging current. It does not cause the current to reduce to a trickle.
Trickle chargers limit the current to a trickle at all times. They are safe enough, but will typically take >10 hours to charge a battery.
Cheap "transformer rectifier" chargers are unregulated. They may easily charge at too high a rate during initial charge and have too high an output voltage to leave "charging", once the battery is charged. The final "trickle" charge is determined by the charger output voltage - not the "impedance".
Both actually.
No. Blade type fuse dummy.
Look in the fusebox of any modern car..
No, I think he means a blade-type fuse.
However, some preset output chargers use a resistor built into a "blade-type fuse" link to set the charging profile and even battery type.
They come with a range of different links for the new owner to choose from.
A third party, seeing one of these and thinking it just a fuse, could cause a lot of damage replacing it with one..
There's no need to call me a dummy... I was only trying to be helpful.
Nope. The impedance of the supply has to be low to deliver a high normal charging current. Unless that impedance is altered as the battery reaches its charged state (ie not a cheap transformer-rectifier charger), the supply impedance remains low - too low to affect the trickle current level.
Once, and it'll kill them
That's nearly as dumb a posting as old Isacc Newton's 8-(
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