Charging a LDV Convoy battery without popping the hood

Found fuses in the centre of the dash and a good earth where the interior light used to be. Poking a wire into the sockets for the biggest fuse gives no joy either.

Is this in the uk? I was wondering about the term hood in the message.

In my view, if its really that flat then the only way is to go to the battery, not via some wiring that might not be up to the task and fuse. Brian

I did wonder, but would be surprised if LDV were exported to the US?

Bonnet dunno where hood came from, I have borrowed an Optimate 4 charger, bit smarter than mine. I have put a connection through a 5 amp fuse holder. The optimate is putting current somewhere, lets hope it is the battery.

If I had to leave the ignition on to get power to the battery through the cigarette lighter, is that OK to do?

A stuck bonnet release doesn't seem unusual. Maybe something here can help:

If it has an OBD-II connector, slow charge through that.

misterroy presented the following explanation :

Can you attach a +ve lead to the starter motor main/ thick cable and one to the chassis?

misterroy expressed precisely :

No, it could burn the coil or points out if an older engine. Even if not, most of the charge will be wasted running electronics etc..

If it will not charge ignition off, then find another way..

the optimate is not getting charge to the battery, it looks like it is putting charge in, but the ignition lights are not coming on after an overnight charge. Gonna have to open the bonnet:(

Are you sure it is actually connecting to the battery? Modern chargers usually need some volts from the battery itself to connect them. If your battery is totally flat it won't connect. The trick is to use a jump start pack to provide the volts to connect it, then remove it once the battery has started charging.

One reason I'm never throwing away my old "transformer" charger.

Ah, but Dave's 'usually' allows for Optimates, that don't need to detect any voltage to kick in and don't have a button (to go wrong) to press to start charging either [1]. ;-)

The OP has such a thing (Optimate 4) so as long as it finds the battery it should charge it.

However, I believe the 4 only has an output current of ~1A (mine is .8A) so it could take a while to charge a battery that was still viable (so above 50% DOD).

The best thing would have been to have hooked the Optimate up when he left the van there ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

I was recently shopping to replace my 1980s 'transformer' charger. It seems like many of them out there have major misfeatures, like trying to detect whether it's a 6v or 12v battery and getting it wrong, or terminating charge and then fail to top up the battery if it discharges. There are ones that don't do that, but they get rather pricey.

I concluded the transformer wasn't fancy but actually did the job better, and the ammeter gives a good indication of charging status. You have to remember to keep an eye on it, but the cable trailing out the window is a good reminder of that...

Theo

I just use a £10 charger from Lidl (Aldi often have the same spec). Which charges and then will maintain, so it can just be left connected - perfect for my kit-car.

It has two problems. The trivial one is that it won't start charging a very flat battery - easily solved by paralleling the old, non-smart charger for a few seconds, so the smart one can see that there is a battery to charge. The "bigger" one, is that if the electric goes off for any reason, even just a long enough dip, it won't restart charging until you press the button - which with a car stored in a garage, that you may not be using for 6 months, is a nuisance when you don't know that it is not maintaining.

That's why I don't consider anything that works like that as an acceptable solution. [1]

And when you consider the cost of a half decent (make / capacity) battery these days,'investing' in something like an Optimate makes perfect sense.

Even an Optimate 2 will maintain the charge on a fairly large battery at around half the price of a ruined battery?

To improve the VFM for the charger and any batteries I have in storage, I built a project that swaps a single charger around a max of

Cheers, T i m

A UPS might solve that.

Yup - and the old style ones will also kick in a lot more than 12v into a battery which has gone high impedance and help reverse the suphation process.

The problem with a crude transformer type is that it likely blows a fuse if reverse connected, even when not switched on.

The relay plus diode that many modern ones use to prevent this is perhaps the simplest way. And one which switches off when the battery is fully charged avoids overcharging.

The 14 quid unit that Lidl sell several times a year is more than up to charging a low battery fully overnight, is automatic and fully protected, and small enough to leave in the car glovebox.

Steve Walker snipped-for-privacy@walker-family.me.uk> wrote: [snip]

Yes, they're a real pain the ones that do that aren't they! I have three or four similar chargers and some do the 'not restarting' bit whereas others go back to charging when the power returns. I have to remember which are which and use them accordingly.