Halfords battery chargers up to 1800 cc

TMC ( snipped-for-privacy@anon.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

A crappy little flimsy plastic thing, then.

It will, but slowly.

"Most suited to"

It will.

It'll be slower to charge than if a bigger charger.was used.

I don't bother with the capacity stated on the charger - my charger is a Halfords 'up to 1800cc' unit and happily charges the huge battery in my Alfa 75.

It's just a way to lever more money out of your wallet.

A fair lead acid battery can be charged by smallest of chargers, the only consequence is a longer to a full charge.

The only other thing to watch out for is that the terminal voltage can rise to a damaging level. You don't want the voltage to go too much above 15V or the batteries will gas and plates irreversibly damaged. The terminal voltage is worth measuring, whilst any lead acid battery is on charge, as a precaution.

Most people only require a battery charger to recharge a battery overnight. In that case the smallest charger you can find will do the job just fine. They all put out the same voltage. Only the current alters with size. If you want speed then you want a bigger charger but if you charge too fast you'll burn the battery out. An overnight trickle charge is as good as anything on any battery ever made.

-- Dave Baker Puma Race Engines

Camp American engineer minces about for high performance specialist (4,4,7)

It's dumbing down. It will work fine on any 12v car battery but will jsut take longer to charge a large battery.

The Halfords ones do actually voltage limit. (OK , the ones I've played with voltage limited but they where the cheap ones)

I'm not aware of any chargers (non-boost type) which provide more current than most alternators.

A trickle charge may be fine in most cases but as I've said earlier it's quite easy to over-voltage and damage a battery. Cheap trickle chargers can give an output in excess of 17V or more.

That would be a clever trick. ;-)

Not when connected to a battery. The open circuit voltage is neither here nor there.

A good battery has very little leakage. Jut see what the terminal voltage can creep up to with say just 1/2 Amp trickle when connected to a battery.

I was looking at chargers in Halfords today. If it's the one I think it is then there is a 'bike' setting which is a neat feature This limits charge to 1.6 A

You are only supposed to charge at 10% max or AH rating eg. 16AH bike battery 1.6 Amps . This is so you don't over heat / warp the plates or cause explosions.. ( however I reckon my bike charges it way faster than that.. )

The Halfords one has auto trickle, electronic control etc, but no analogue meter.. and is a tad 'made in China' looking. I had to look on the bottom to find the max current, which was 7Amps. Buyable for

30 quid I'd say but it'll probly be in a land-fill the day after the warranty runs out.

To answer your question, presumably 7 amps = 10hrs to charge fully flat

70 Amp/Hr diesel battery overnight.

There's the losses to heat etc to consider. Also, the charge current may not actually be 7 Amps, that is simply the rated maximum capability of the charger. The charge current will drop as the battery charges, so that has to be considered too.

Morse

It's even more cynical than that, it's the rms current, which just tells= =

you how hot the charger will get, the charge into your battery is the =

average current, which ill always be significantly lower,

Most car, and bike batteries for starting bikes, have a high charge and discharge rates. Otherwise your alternator would destroy a battery after each time you started the engine. In practice they are very rugged as along as the charge voltage is regulated.

When it comes to caravan batteries and the like you're spot on. They can't cope with fast charge or discharge but are more rugged when it comes to deep discharge.

In practice it may be longer. Amp hour efficiency is often quoted at 80%.

No real reason unless it's an SMPS type - ie no large mains transformer. I'm suspicious of just how long these will last. You can tell if it weighs not a lot.

My Halfords (several years old) says in large letters 11 amps - but in the spec 8 amps RMS. So I'd guess it was written by someone in the ICE department who doesn't have clue about DC. But even if yours is a genuine

7 amps it probably won't charge at full belt for long. And charging systems aren't 100% efficient. I'd say more like 24 hours - if the battery is in good condition.

This is of course nonsense. Diesels usually have larger batteries than petrols due to more power is needed for starter to overcome high compression. But as other have said, any charger will do, it just takes more time. Maplins now sell solar panel chargers, for £9.99 (half price) might be useful to put on the fascia, but on the other hand, could also attract dumb thieves, who might think it's something for SATNAV?

Did u see on the news the thief who stole a CCTV camera while being perfectly filmed...