My kids Power Wheels has not been charging correctly lately. So I put my meter on the power supply charger leads and only read 10.6V. Should it be reading more than 12V since it is charging a 12V battery? I checked the power supply with no load. Does the output voltage jump up if it was connected to the battery?
Mike,
Power Wheels come in both 6v and 12v versions. They use different plugs and jacks. If you are sure that you have the 12v version then the charger should put out more than 12v., even when unloaded
Dave M.
Its definately 12V, it came with the Power wheels. It even says it on the power supply.
I dug up an old 12VDC power supply rated about the same as the old PS. I'm going to try it and see what happens.
Perhaps the charger isn't using a bridge rectifier and only putting out a half wave DC. Check the voltage at the battery when the charger is connected. Of course, if you had an oscilloscope you would know immediately by checking the output of the charger. Oh yea, do you have an analog or digital meter?
TDD
Only digital.
If you have a power supply that doesn't put out clean DC, you'll actually get a reading on the AC scale of the meter too. If you can get to the battery terminals while the charger is connected, what sort of reading do you get there? Most chargers for lead acid batteries of the type I've seen in electric scooters for kids will put out around 14 volts when the battery is close to full charge. A wall wart power supply that puts out unregulated 12 VDC for charging batteries or as a power supply usually puts out 16-18 volts DC with no load and it's large and heavy. The regulated switching power supplies that you're more likely to see these days are smaller and very light compared to older style unregulated supplies. If your charger is fairly lightweight, it could be a switching supply and defective if it's only putting out a voltage lower than the voltage printed on it. When you have a good switching power supply, the output voltage is usually exactly that indicated by the label whether it's under load or not within the current rating.
TDD
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